contoursvt said:
By real OS if you mean one that has little software selection in stores, has kernel panics at least 5x more than XP ever has bluescreens, feels heavy and sluggish on the GUI, still has permission issues that are rediculous and has terrible openGL performance for games or anything fun and who's last revision is bad enough that every single last mac owner in our graphic design department switched back to 10.3.9 since 10.4 was more problematic than release candide (beta) ever was for XP. Sounds great. Where can I sign up?
Usually I try and stay out of this, but here goes...
Windows is a REAL OS
Personally, I think a real OS is something that allows you to do your tasks safely and securely without the fear of some rogue application installing itself and mucking up of your computing experience. This also includes the myriad of software that is necessary to run in the background to prevent these rogue applications from installing themselves.
I also think each revision of said "real OS" should make your computer function FASTER, not SLOWER. I don't know about you, but each version of Mac OS X that I've used (from 10.1 to 10.3) has made the system feel
faster and more stable than the last. If you had problems, then consider that it might have been the way you installed 10.4. I don't know how many times I've told people to install Windows a certain way but you still see people "upgrading" from previous versions incorrectly, and then wonder why everything is messed up.
Also regarding speed, if you are expecting stellar performance on OS X with a B&W G3 that was introduced a little over 6 years ago, I would like to see you get even the SLIGHTEST performance you'd get on OS X with your G3 Power Mac on a comparable PC from that year running the latest Windows XP.
And here we are still waiting for Loooooooooooong-in-the-tooth-horn to show us a REAL OS. Although it seems more like hot air since almost everything promised has been removed. ::sleepy::
Lack of Mac Software in Stores
I don't know about you, but for most of the major apps out there, there's always (for the most part) a Mac equivalent. Office, IE (if you choose to use that), Adobe, Macromedia, etc. etc..... They are all there.
As far as I know, the rest of the apps that aren't on the Mac seem to be poorly developed applications for people that would rather by cheap. Well, you get what you pay for. It is very rare to find bargain third-class applications for the Mac since most Mac users wouldn't even bother with such trash.
If by lack of software you mean games?? If you haven't noticed, most of the major games are also available for the Mac. And even some Mac only titles offer wonderful gameplay, which I'm sure many Mac users can attest to.
Which brings me to my next mention...
Slower Performance for Games Ported to the Mac
Again, the emphasis here is PORTED. Consider that many Windows games are written for DirectX. This is mainly the reason why most games ported to the Mac perform sluggishly since Mac OS X uses OpenGL. Most of these ports are not done well either because they don't have the manpower for the port, or they just don't care. What about those games that were written using OpenGL from the start? I'm sure those would be running a lot faster compared to the DirectX-Windows-to-Mac ports. And what about those original games for the Mac??? Trust me, I'm sure they run QUITE fine.
I hate this bickering about OSes as much as anyone else, but I think someone has to come out with the rebuttal. Anyways, for the record I run Mac OS Classic, Windows, Linux, and I use Mac OS X at my job. Each and everyone of the machines that I've installed an OS on has been running without issues, although I do have to say that Windows lags behind, especially since I have to protect it with so much software so that it's not compromised in
12 minutes! There are too many factors to say whether one is more stable than the other, so its safe to say that each can be as solid as the other but it's only as stable as the installation performed by the installer.
