# Dissapointed so far



## contoursvt (Dec 21, 2002)

Not to start a flame but I had traded a PIII 533Mhz with a 30gig drive, 256mb RAM for a G3 B&W with 256mb RAM and 30gig drive. It runs at 400Mhz.

My observation so far. OSX 10.2 is very pretty and clean. Other than this, I see no other real benefit. Its no more or less stable than Win2k/XP in my opinion and no easier to use. I'll take a stab and say that application compatability with older apps is not as good as it could be but I dont know for sure because I didnt use any older apps. 

Installation took nearly 2 hours which is just unacceptable for a 400Mhz machine of any kind. A PII 400Mhz machine takes about 1 hour to install XP. Granted this is just once but even booting OSX is a painful process. It takes so long to start. With the eye candy on default settings, windows are as fast as a snail. This is compared to the PIII 533 of course. That was my 3rd machine at the time. 

I traded the PC for the MAC to play with OSX and basically, I'm done playing. Hardware support so far is poor in my opinion. I have a Hammer UW SCSI controller based on a Qlogic chipset which works in OS9 but not OSX. There is no excuse why the chipset cannot be supported. Apple obviously doesnt care about supporting 3rd party users especially some of the older stuff so the user will be out of luck. Too bad. A 10K SCSI drive and UW controller gone to waste.  At least Win2K/XP still has many drivers for products which were gone long ago.

User interface is also very slow. This may not be the fault of the hardware though. Its OSX. Even when I installed Redhat 9 on the 533 running Gnome, I found it sluggish in terms of user interface. Maybe Unix/Linux and all variants are just not as tighly written as Win2k/XP when it comes to the interface. I compare the interface speed to a Pentium 166MMX running XP with about 128mb RAM. I can compare because I had to do this for a client who insisted. 

About the above, in fact, I will go as far to say that OSX can make any fast machine feel slow. My friend bought a dual 1gig G4 with 512MB RAM and a 60 gig drive. I think its 60. Doesnt matter. This machine felt horribly slow. Sure it was 10.1.something but still, come on. My server machine is a used compaq SP700 dual PII Xeon 450Mhz which feels much faster. I'm sure that the 60gig 7200RPM IDE drive is faster than the 9.1gig 7200RPM SCSI drive which boots this server. Sure processing power is much greater on the Dual 1gig but so what. Unless someone is going to do a batch conversion of 500mp3s or some Divx encoding or something like that, its a waste considering how slow it feels. I'm not even going to talk about the speed difference between the XP2100 AMD system I put together.  

Also I hear rumors that the next release of OSX may not even support G3's?  If this is the case, then god what a shame and what a horrible company to have on your side. Its like throwing money into the wind. Forcing users to upgrade just plain sucks. 


Anyway thats my rant. Maybe it would be differrent if I was a casual user who didnt have exposure to different systems. At least I was able to find a buyer for it who will offer me somewhat more than what I could have sold a 533 PIII for so thats good. Resale value is nice.


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## Giaguara (Dec 21, 2002)

256 mb is not much for jaguar, 128 is the minimum... the more ram the better it runs. and 10.1 .. is slower anyway. 
2 hours?? i think to install mine it took 40 minutes. less than installing redhat.

i won't go back for windows, if i'd use a pc it'd have linux or other *X on it. u'll get enough speed once u use unix, and on a windows anything.. can't do that. i like the graphics but.. enjoy the terminal as well

any support seems better than windows. at least it has been so for me.

i hope you'll find yourself better in the future with the os x. at least the mac does what i want, with windows i felt like i had to do what windows wanted.. how long ago did you get your mac?


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## contoursvt (Dec 21, 2002)

Well, I dont know, I guess I'm a little bit more ticked off than I should be because I cant get good SCSI components to work due to lack of support.  Thing is, I cant even find any info on this FWB UW SCSI card. All I know is that the chipset is Qlogic which works fine in all versions of windows and PC linux and it works in OS9.


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## ex2bot (Dec 21, 2002)

I agree with contoursvt to a certain extent on slower machines. OS X requires some horsepower. But my flat-panel iMac (800 mHz) is plenty fast for me. Most operations are essentially instantaneous.

I also question some of the points:

-Slow boot time . . . How often do you boot, really? 
-Slow installation time. . . How often do you install?
-10.1 is slow. . . Well, we're running .2 now. It's significantly snappier. For new hardware, the windowing interface is 3d accelerated (Quartz Gl).
-Future OS X versions won't support G3s? I DOUBT it. Current iBooks are still running with G3s.

Win XP is stable, but it's ugly both in looks and interface design. I much prefer working (with Office, for example) on Mac. I'm selling my PC.

I understand you're frustrated, but come on.

Doug


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## phatsharpie (Dec 23, 2002)

I have to admit that OS X boots slowly for me too, but it's not any slower than Windows 2000 on a PIII-600MHz. However, the saving grace is that I re/boot my machine about once every two months. I am completely serious about this. The only time I re/boot is when I have to install an update, but other then that, I can just close the lid of my PowerBook and put it to sleep and it never gave me any problems! Although I did find Windows 2000 stable, it couldn't compare with Mac OS X.

Regarding the speed of the UI. I do think it could be improved, but it doesn't really bother me all that much. I don't resize and move my windows all the time - and the slowness is more about preceptions than anything else. I find myself multitaking more and never had I any problems with running most of my applications at once.

What really sold me on OS X is when I did the following experiment:

1. Open up a transparent terminal window and run top.

2. Open a MPG movie in Quicktime - make sure it's looping.

3. Open another MPG movie in Quicktime - make sure it's looping.

4. Play a song from a CD in iTunes - turn on the visual effects (so that it plays the effects within a window).

5. Stagger the multiple windows so that the transparent terminal window is on top and all the moving images can be seen through the window.

The amazing thing was that none of the MPGs had any playback problems. The CD played flawlessly. Despite low frame-rates, the visual effects by iTunes played without a hitch. And top refreshed with no problems in the transparent terminal window.

It was amazing - I have never seen a desktop computer (or a laptop in this instance) do something like it.


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## fryke (Dec 23, 2002)

What sold me on Mac OS X was one feature that you mentioned as well - albeit not in your list. The instant sleep and wakeup. As a writer I love writing my stories while I'm on a train to work or back home from work. I have to change trains in the middle. I've often seen people use their notebooks and shutting them down (!) or putting them to sleep two minutes before the train arrived at the station. It's a nice trick on them to keep on writing on my TiBook and only closing the lid when they get up and just follow them outside. Same when entering the next train. If you're lucky, the same PC guy (or OS 9 guy for that matter) will also use the same train this time. You follow him, sit somewhere where he can still see you, open your 'book and start writing immediately.

It happened to me once or twice, and one time the guy I was making fun of said that I was joking. So I showed him how easily it worked on Mac OS X. He was using a Pismo with OS 9 himself, and as he was using it for PIM functions and Excel sheets, I showed him Microsoft Office v. X. He was the right kinda guy. A lawyer with some money. He went shopping the day after. And I'm sure he got a TiBook with Mac OS X preinstalled as well as a copy of Office v. X.


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## dlloyd (Dec 23, 2002)

I'm glad, another converter! 
I really like the instant sleep/wakeup on my iBook, I've heard that it isn't as fast as a powerbook, but by the time I have finished opening the lid, it has usually fully woken up.
I must say that I have only restarted this about three times since I got it (last week), one was to test and see how long it took, one was to install OS 1.2.3, and the last was because I think that OS X crashed. 
As for the UI, I don't find that it is any slower than OS 9, but I haven't really pushed it yet.
My dad has a 2.56GHz PC running XP, and I am really upset because that boots in 15 seconds _flat!_.
Come on Apple, get your act together!


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## edX (Dec 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by contoursvt _
> *Well, I dont know, I guess I'm a little bit more ticked off than I should be because I cant get good SCSI components to work due to lack of support.  Thing is, I cant even find any info on this FWB UW SCSI card. All I know is that the chipset is Qlogic which works fine in all versions of windows and PC linux and it works in OS9. *



like the floppy disk, scsi is dead. 

basically i have the same computer you do and os x works fine. of course i have double the ram and i would suggest you have at least 512 as well. but since it isn't going to ever get that instant responsiveness while browsing or launching apps, you'll probably continue to be upset. accept the limitations of the mac-chine, accept the limitations that accompany the stability of the os and start learning the tricks to tweaking it to suit your needs instead of assuming it's all apple's fault and then perhaps you'll enjoy it for what it is and stop crying about what it is not.


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## PowermacG4_450 (Dec 26, 2002)

> _Originally posted by contoursvt _
> *Installation took nearly 2 hours
> 
> *




2 hours to install osX? why? took me NO longer than 30 minutes... 

weird. What did ya do wrong? I have a 450mhz g4 tower


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## fryke (Dec 27, 2002)

it heavily depends on several things. Optical drive read speed (reading from the installation CD), harddisk drive read/write speeds (writing packages to the harddisk, reading them, writing final files), and processor speed (unpacking the archives etc.). the amount of RAM also is important while installing, because it reduces file swapping even there. but two hours is just too much. was the CD scratched? even the Public Beta of OS X didn't take an hour on my first generation iBook at the time.


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## edX (Dec 27, 2002)

my understanding is that if you do any easy install with all the language packages, that's how long it takes.


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## kendall (Dec 27, 2002)

i used to be able to install SuSE linux in 7 minutes.  those were the days.

now even linux installs are bloated and crappy.  

it takes about an hour to do a factory fresh install of OS X without the language packs.  install routines are different on the newest Macs.


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## hulkaros (Dec 27, 2002)

Re-installing OS X.2 from the 2 cds it takes 45 minutes at the MOST... Anything beyond that isn't normal... And yes that includes installing the cat under an iMac G3/400/256MB... Maybe you use illegal copies?

On faster machines and especially when using the DVD versions found on newer machines the time comes down at 30 minutes the most...

As Fryke said, RAM plays a big role too... That's why in our company we DO NOT sell Macs running X.2 with less than 256 MB... Hell, we even give away those extra 128 MB on lower end Macs  

Compared to other OSes on the market Jaguar installs somewhat fast... And yes compared to XP as well! And that when XP recognises the devices because when it doesn't the Cat simply installs DAMN fast


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## kendall (Dec 27, 2002)

a factory reinstall of OS X takes 5 CDs on my iBook and well over an hour.


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## Sogni (Dec 28, 2002)

> _Originally posted by itanium _
> *a factory reinstall of OS X takes 5 CDs on my iBook and well over an hour. *



 
5 CDs?
 
Why's that?


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## Sirtovin (Dec 28, 2002)

I have problems with this... Maybe it's because I built 3 PC's... the first was an Intel 166mhz... the second... and AMD K6-350mhz and the third... was a AMD XP 1700 or 1.467 GHz...

Install on the last for Windows XP PRO was about 30 mins... Tops... 

When I made the "Switch" to Mac... turn was about 15 mins... To boot... less than 5 mins to type my name, address and enter my lan settings etc.

I did put 1gig of memory into this Dual 867mhz... and to me it runs smoothly... 

I am not a big fan of OS-9... but that's probably because I like OS-X... and I am a "Switcher".  (I am not downing OS-9 I just find that X works for me...)

I think this is just a normal Anti-Mac Rant.

My Mac "Switch" has been everything I expected... and more.


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## contoursvt (Jan 7, 2003)

Of course this is an Anti-Mac rant. Think about it. WinXP is much bigger than 98 but more stable with much better multitasking and its faster too. OSX is much bigger than OS9, more stable with better multitasking but is slow as a dog. IF MS can do it, then apple should too.

Also to the guy who said SCSI is dead. Sure, it is. Just keep telling yourself that. Now that Apple doesnt ship SCSI in a mac, then all of a sudden SCSI is dead. I'm sure that U320 SCSI that came out not long ago did so just for the hell of it. I'm sure all high end workstations and servers have no need for SCSI controllers and drives either.

Think about this. Firewire: 400mbps

UW SCSI = 40mBYTES/sec = 320mbps 
U2W SCSI = 80mBYTES/sec = 640mbps
U160 = 160mBYTES/sec = 1280mbps
U320 = 320mBYTES/sec = 2560mbps

So the U160 controller in my PC has 3x the bandwidth of firewire. Also think of this. The fastest IDE is ATA133 which is great however you fail to realize that you still have an IDE drive turning at 7200RPM. That IDE drive is still MUCH slower in transfer rates and even slower in access time when compared to a new SCSI. Do you honestly think that your IDE drive feels anywhere as good as my Quantum Atlas 10K III U160 drive thats in my second machine...let along get remotely close to the snappy quick feeling of my 15,000RPM Cheetah? Get real. Oh ya, that IDE drive which is far slower than SCSI drives is still the same drive thats in the super duper Firewire externals so if you think your firewire is the fastest thing on earth, then think again. Its as fast as an IDE drive. Yay. 

Did you know that swapping a fast hard drive makes a system feel much faster than any other hardware change? I guarantee that a seagate X15 drive/controller in a G4 733 would make the system feel twice as fast as a 1gig G4 with the fastest IDE drive.

I'm being very harsh but Apple is shooting itself in the foot as far as performance is concerned and everyone is thrilled. Processors are slower. OS is slower and of course the drives are not any better than the average dollar store PC either. Heck what apple should have done is to have U160 SCSI standard in the G4 or at least the dual. Boot with an 18gig 15K drive and throw in a second IDE drive as storage. Then the system would feel way faster than it is...Especially now that OSX is installed. Considering that its the first real multitasking OS apple has offered. SCSI and multitasking go hand in hand. Thats where it shines!


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## Sogni (Jan 7, 2003)

You can buy SCSI controllers and SCSI drives for the Mac too if you really wanted to you know...


BTW, wouldn't SCSI at least *DOUBLE* the price of any computer?


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## contoursvt (Jan 7, 2003)

I know you can buy controllers and drives for the mac too but my initial frustration was the fact that OSX did not support the UW SCSI controller that was working great under OS9. Reading through lots of posts I see that OSX has poor Boot support for SCSI adapters anyway. Then someone mentioned that SCSI was dead which just pis*ed me off totally.

I dont know about mac versions but a Tekram U160 controller for PC costs about $150. An 18gig 15,000RPM drive costs about $220. Its not cheap but for about $370 one can have blistering speed. All you need to do is make it your boot drive and also make sure you have your swap file on this drive.


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## superfula (Jan 15, 2003)

You should have done some research first.  Find out if all your hardware works with OSX, THEN switch.  Don't blame Apple either.  Blame the company who made your card.  They are the ones creating drivers.

Wake up people.  scsi has been dead for a few years now.  The only realm it has ANY use at all is servers, and that won't last long.  Per performace, scsi is way too expensive.  A scsi hd will NOT double the performance of your computer over a 7200rpm.  Let's get a clue people.  Just buy a normal harddrive to replace your scsi one.


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## callieX (Jan 15, 2003)

You are dead wrong about SCSI.  It is not dead and is faster than the current drives that Apple ships. They are more expensive though and that is why Apple switched.  People constantly bitched about how much more expensive Mac's were than PC's.  One reason was SCSI.  So Apple switched to  the cheaper PC like ATA drives and people still are not satisfied.  As a system Admin using Sun and HP servers all of our drives are SCSI and very expensive.  You get what you pay for.  Apple now make the SCSI drives an option.  

Calliex


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## phatsharpie (Jan 15, 2003)

SCSI is great if you can afford it. Not long ago (before I switched to Macs), I was using a friend's PC which has an internal SCSI hard drive - P3/600, Windows 2000, 256MB of RAM, nothing special - and at this time I had a PC that is exactly the same as hers, sans SCSI HD. When I used her system is was definitely faster! Everything was more responsive. I was really impressed. However, her 10K Cheetah was loud as all Heck, and for the price she paid for the drive I got an ATA/66 with at least twice the capacity. So if you can afford it, sure it's great! But I think ATA is much better for 99% of the people out there - especially in terms of bang for buck.


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## contoursvt (Jan 16, 2003)

I understand that I should have done research but why is this product which has been out of circulation from a manufacturer who has been dead for a while be supported in win2k and XP. Thats my point. If that SCSI card is supported there, I think OSX should have supported it. I'm sure all popular flavours of Linux on PC will support Qlogic based SCSI cards as well. My point is that I think support for chipsets should have been there.

Anyway SCSI is not dead. SCSI is by far the best improvement any system can get. Better than any cpu upgrade. If I had to choose between going IDE on my AMD box or dropping way down to a PIII 450 but keeping all my SCSI stuff, I'd rather do that. Having built hundreds of different desktops and servers, I can honestly say that SCSI drives and interface is worth the money.


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## zippygaloo (Jan 17, 2003)

Why don't you just go ahead an ship me that old bag of a G3. I'll take it off your hands. I'll even pay the shipping!


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## palott (Jan 17, 2003)

SCSI is nowhere near dead!  Expensive, reliable, blazing fast, but dead? Come on. That's like saying since most ordinary computer users use  windows that UNIX is dead. 

SCSI is the standard for servers, and high end computing due to its reliablility and speed. I have 3 SCSI drives (0 ide) in my PIII 450 MHz linux box, and it blows the socks off any of the 1+GHz machines I've used as far as running multiple applications, launching apps or running as a server. 

IDE is nice for storing your mp3's and large files that don't have to be accessed often, and if you have a backup scheme they're usually fine  for the every day joe user. 

Until the clock speeds on processors get ALOT faster, and rpms of IDE get up around where scsi is now you won't come close to the performance of a SCSI based system. Maybe when that happens you'll see scsi give up the ghost, but of course by then they'll have Ultra Wide 640 or something with 30K RPM's 

anyway.. that's my 2 cents


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## fryke (Jan 17, 2003)

Just a comment in between. Someone said that Windows XP is bigger but also faster than Windows 98. This is simply not true. Usually, people are comparing this by remembering how Win98 was on an old box with how WinXP works on their new one, so... I can tell you that on both my PII/350 and a friend's P4/2.2 Windows 98 is faster in everything (even in crashing, of course). Windows XP and its UI _did_ cost a lot of processing power and memory, compared to Win98 at least, but the difference might be that the PCs have been sped up faster.

Yet, I have to add it, I'm fine with my TiBook 500. I'll buy a new one, as soon as I have the money, because it IS showing its age sometimes, but I'm still in a stage where I can absolutely do all of my work fine on the old little bugger and with speed on Mac OS X 10.2.3. The thousands of Swiss Francs have been a good investment for me, as I've never before had a notebook that lasted so long as my top machine.


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## contoursvt (Jan 18, 2003)

I have swithed many clients from Win98/Me to Win2k/XP and both myself and the users feel the difference. Usually I'll get calls from the people that were hesitant to upgrade, telling me that its soooo much faster. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that its a new install...but in general I've  noticed that win98 tends to drag its feet sometimes where win2k/xp doesnt seem to.


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## hulkaros (Jan 19, 2003)

> _Originally posted by contoursvt _
> *I have swithed many clients from Win98/Me to Win2k/XP and both myself and the users feel the difference. Usually I'll get calls from the people that were hesitant to upgrade, telling me that its soooo much faster. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that its a new install...but in general I've  noticed that win98 tends to drag its feet sometimes where win2k/xp doesnt seem to. *



Them thinking Win2K/XP being faster than Win98 is purely psychological or they added more ram, a new faster hard disk, new faster graphics card, a new better soundcard or all of the above!

Or they already use a top of the line Wintel box which in order to show its real power MUST have a Win2K/XP installation...

And yes, the thing about fresh install also stands correct


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## r4bid (Jan 19, 2003)

There is no way that WinXP or Win2k are "faster" than 98.  Think about it, winXP's minimum requirements are like double that of 98, so you have half of a system left to do the same amount of work.  I have owned 98 and 2k and I can tell you that 2k is the slower of the two on the same hardware.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is either fooling themselves or is experiencing the joys of a clean install (windows gets slower over time a clean install will speed up your comp a bit).

Concerning start up times.  How often do you reboot?  Does startup time really matter?  My windows 2k box (on a 1.8ghz athlon) takes over 2.5 minutes to boot.  Oh no, OSX takes a while to boot too.  If your friends XP boots in 30 seconds then either he wasn't booting (was waking up, yes pcs take atleast that long to come out of hibernation) or XP is roughly 5x faster at booting than 2k and seeing as they are built on the same code base I somehow doubt this.  But hey, does it even matter?  You shouldn't be rebooting much anyways on any "modern quality" OS...

and buying a new system without first checking compatibility is just goofy.  When I bought win2k there were no drivers out for my joystick, but it had worked under windows 98SE.  You wont hear stories about me running to the closest windows forum and complaining because I didn't.  It was my fault I didn't check first, same thing applies here.  

You want something to actully get done about it, email the hardware vendors and apple.  Ranting in here probably wont make one ounce of change...


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## ApeintheShell (Feb 2, 2003)

I could see how it would be useful for the Power Mac's. 
Yet the external hard drives were a pain.

SCSI lug in drive, turn on the computer, install driver's, restart, do work
FIREWIRE:  Plug in, turn on computer(well let's assume it is always on), do work
Plus you can just eject it from the finder and unplug it without the computer telling you to shut down.

It's possible the switch campaign wouldn't pan out if scsi was still implemented. Consumers want ease of use, which describes firewire.


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## garethwi (Feb 2, 2003)

Well, I recently set up my own web development company (one employee and counting), and just so that I could make truly platform independent site, I went and bought myself an eMac.  Prior to this purchase I was firmly in the FreeBSD camp for desktop, and hadve a linux server (my printer doesn't work with FreeBSD).  I only ever start up windows for browser testing.  Anyway, in the week since I've bought the eMac, I've moved all of my development over to it, and copied all of my mail, and calendar files across, too.  My once precious laptop has now been reduced to being a DVD player to keep me amused while programming.

The reasons:  

The main one (and I think the one which always attract people to the Mac) is that OS X looks drop dead georgeous.  And the font smoothing makes it easy to sit there programming for hours on end without a hint of a headache.

The next one is that fact that all my open source tools (apache, perl, mysql, postgres, php, cvs, etc.) are only a download away, and they install brilliantly (apart from php which demanded a whole hour of my time - more my fault than php's).

As for the install taking so long, if you select the customise option, before clicking on install or upgrade, you can deselect all of the language variants you are not likely to use.  This brought my install time down from a couple of hours to around half an hour.


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## Aeronyth (Feb 3, 2003)

As a current Windows user, i have upgraded my machine from 98 to XP, and the boot time has CONSIDERABLY increased.  It probably takes around 30 seconds or less to start the computer...And for some reason when i upgraded, my "sleep" feature was lost, so i usually shut down the computer.

As for running faster, well, i can say it does run a few things a little faster than 98 did, but it's not that much of a change..

The only big reason i upgraded was for the stability.  I crashed daily with 98...

Now, overall, i'm getting sick of windows and i'm considering the "apple switch".


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## Arden (Feb 10, 2003)

IMO, SCSI should be dead.  It may be alive and kicking on the high-end server market, but for uz consumerz it is the biggest computer-related pain in the ass I have ever had to deal with.  Just look at the connections.  Tell me you like that gigantic plug better than a small Firewire plug.  I'll ask you what medication you are on.  You can have your SCSI in your server and eat it too, but for the average Joe (and that's my real name), IDE/Firewire works far better than SCSI ever will.  I can not see many families buying super-duper SCSI upgrade cards for their email computers.


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## Sirtovin (Feb 10, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Aeronyth _
> *As a current Windows user, i have upgraded my machine from 98 to XP, and the boot time has CONSIDERABLY increased.  It probably takes around 30 seconds or less to start the computer...And for some reason when i upgraded, my "sleep" feature was lost, so i usually shut down the computer.
> 
> As for running faster, well, i can say it does run a few things a little faster than 98 did, but it's not that much of a change..
> ...



Welcome to th real world... A few things you need to consider before making the Switch...

1. Since you have used Windows for quite a considerable amount of time... What was your primary purpose?  (Games?  Writing, Graphic editing etc?)

2. If you answer Games... Than you must consider this... Keep your Windows PC and consider it your Gaming PC... Only because Mac OS-X is still new and an infant to today's games etc.

3. If you go with the G4 Power Pc (Tower) consider memory as your ultimate upgrade... Mac Os X is a memory hog... but when you up your memory to about 1gig or more you will be happy of the performance increases..

4. I am only telling you this because I am an A+ Certified Tech.. (Means nothing unless you know the right people to get you the right job etc...) and I've been using Windows Machines since Windows 3.X... I am a "Switcher".. and I consider what I have done is a great move.

Any Questions... Ask.


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## Aeronyth (Feb 10, 2003)

Well, i really use my computer for internet and a FEW games.

Things in my quicklaunch: IE, MSN, WMP (eww), Photoshop, All Office programs, Furcadia (a online game that i can still play with this comp if i get a mac..), RealPlayer, ICQ, SimCity3000, The Sims, AIM and a few other useless things i need to delete.

MOST of those things are available on a Macintosh, and if there's something that i cant get i can probably run it with this computer.

(As for PC users being discouraged with Apple, there still IS a lack of general applications available for Mac.  This is easily demonstrated by going to a store and looking through the software section... windows windows windows.)

For me getting a mac, i'm considering the iMac, or possibly the G4 tower.  The G4 tower is available for pretty cheap now, but it's going to cost a little more than the iMac if i get a apple display.

Oh, BTW, i am only 15 and this would be my parents $$$, but we're going for <2000$.  With that said, when i go to college i'll be buying my own computer(most likely a laptop) and my parents will keep the computer...so, i think i'm looking at the iMac.

Okay, i'm done rambling now.


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## edX (Feb 10, 2003)

one thing to say about firewire/usb vs. scsi - "plug and play". Not having this is what makes scsi obsolete for the average consumer. i have on several occasions lost proper drive recogniton for my externals. the only way to repair them is to launch the repair app and then plug them in. if they were scsi, i wouldn't be able to repair them, only to reformat and lose all the valuable files they contained. While i wasn't real thrilled with the initial cost of upgrading all peripherals to usb and firewire, i've considered it worth the investment ever since. of course, it also didn't take me long to figure out that usb devices are less than the best either and i now seek out firewire whenever possible and i can afford it. I'm still waiting for a decent affordable firewire scanner to appear.


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## contoursvt (Feb 10, 2003)

Hey Arden, I will agree with external device being nicer and more convenient as firewire but I made not one reference to external devices. I said SCSI is not dead at all and mentioned high end servers and workstations. Internal SCSI drives are still way way faster than IDE drives and have the biggest impact on system responsiveness. 

A 1Ghz P3 with 512MB RAM and a 15K SCSI drive will demolish a 2.53 or even 3Ghz P4 with a large IDE drive when it comes to how the system FEELS. 

Also, the 'average' joe at home doesnt need ultrafast hard drives the same as they dont need ultrafast cpus. They are not power users and will probably not multitask a lot anyway.  Also seeing that the best place to have SCSI is in a multitasking environment. I can talk about it until I'm blue in the face but people who have it and are running 10K and 15K drives know what I'm talking about. People who dont, will argue all kinds of points but it doesnt matter really. A dual 80gig 7200RPM IDE RAID system doesnt feel as nice to use as the 10K Atlas III drive in my secondary machine. I know because my friend runs the dual IDE RAID. It benchmarks fine but the system still falls on its face unless you limit what you do to only a few things at a time.

Basically I didnt buy a fast CPU and fast ram to be bottlenecked somewhere else. Consider also that firewire is still slower than a 4 year old U2W controller card (640mbit). An ultra160 is capable of 1280mbit and U320 is 2560mbit/sec.  Couple that with the fact that inside that firewire box lies nothing more than a regular 7200RPM IDE drive, one wonders exactly what the big deal is. I guess its nice as a not so fast external solution. Convenient and decent enough. Like USB 2.0 I guess.


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## Sirtovin (Feb 10, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Aeronyth _
> *Well, i really use my computer for internet and a FEW games.
> 
> Things in my quicklaunch: IE, MSN, WMP (eww), Photoshop, All Office programs, Furcadia (a online game that i can still play with this comp if i get a mac..), RealPlayer, ICQ, SimCity3000, The Sims, AIM and a few other useless things i need to delete.
> ...



Good news is you can buy what is called a KVM switch... so if you still need your PC... You can use it buy using one monitor... but since your leaning toward an Imac... I say go for the 17inch display... it's a little more money... but well worth it on your eyes.


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## Aeronyth (Feb 11, 2003)

I don't think i'm even considering the 15 inch.  The screen is ..TOO small.  $1799 is a reasonable price, and i like the widescreen.


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## Sirtovin (Feb 11, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Aeronyth _
> *I don't think i'm even considering the 15 inch.  The screen is ..TOO small.  $1799 is a reasonable price, and i like the widescreen. *



Ok but make sure you Max out the memory... OS X is a Memory Cruncher... Max it out... I did.


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## edX (Feb 11, 2003)

yea, but max it out with ram from someone other than  apple. their prices are ridiculous.


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## Aeronyth (Feb 11, 2003)

I was thinking about that...Apple's RAM seemed to be expensive...but..(stupid question) is all ram compatible with macs?


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## edX (Feb 11, 2003)

most of it is. just be sure you get it from someone who sells other mac stuff or specializes in memory and will make sure you get compatible chips. bad ram is the leading cause of kernel panics (os x crashes).


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## Sirtovin (Feb 11, 2003)

> _Originally posted by edX _
> *yea, but max it out with ram from someone other than  apple. their prices are ridiculous. *



lol I totally agree here... Stay away from Compusa... Rip off artists they are... a good site to get ram is mwave.com or a1000.com... Good places...


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## Aeronyth (Feb 12, 2003)

Oh, speaking of RAM, how the hell do you manually get RAM inside of the iMac?

I can't begin to imagine how crowded that poor motherboard is..


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