Anyone Who Thinks Windows Is Superior To Mac OS X Is An Idiot. Period. [Archive]

The Central Scrutinizer

22nd August 2008, 10:04 PM

Some background - I abandoned Windows almost 3 years ago, because I wanted an OS (and, by extension, a computer) that worked continuously, with the exception that I do have a Windows Vista machine (long story short, I had to have a Windows machine).

So I happen to be on the Windows machine tonight, looking at some (non-porn) videos, when all of a sudden, my volume control no longer works. Doesn't come up. I go to control panel to launch the main volume control and get (not responding). Looks like I'll have to reboot again. Yes, again. Because I had to reboot earlier today when Ad-Aware decided it didn't want to launch. Oh, and did I mention that my desktop icons rearranged themselves yesterday? Did I ask them to? No.

With Windows, it's one thing after another. All of a sudden this stops working. Or that. And you have to reboot. And that's not even mentioning when it freezes up completely. Or reboots on its own. Or decides it no longer wants to recognize the wireless router or the network printer. Although, I should feel privileged that it recognizes the printer at all. My Mac recognized it within 10 seconds of plugging it in. For the Windows machine, it was a 45 minute battle, with multiple reboots before it could send data to the printer. Which is an improvement on the 3 hour battle I had to get it to recognize the wireless network when I first bought it. Mac, 30 seconds. Windows, 3 hours. For those keeping score at home.

Oh great. Not only will the control panel not launch, now it doesn't want to close. Unbelievable.

Off to reboot. Or maybe just turn it off and get on my Mac (which, I should add, is going on 3 years of continuous, 24/7 operation without once locking up, or rearranging icons, or failing to launch a program. Not once.

Although, I do have to admit that Windows Vista has gotten better since the release of SP1. Before that, my machine would literally reboot itself 8-10 times a day. It would have been more, but there were sometimes when I wasn't here to reboot it again. After SP1, it probably only mysteriously reboots itself once a week. Oh, it's probably worth mentioning that my Mac has never rebooted itself, without asking first.

Unbelievable.

elgarak

22nd August 2008, 10:47 PM

It took me a while longer to abandon Windows -- I'm on a Mac for less than a year.

But even when I was still using Windows, I knew that it was not the best quality software around. Microsoft's coding is, at the best of times, third rate. And I believe that any remotely capable Windows user is well aware of this -- just the range at which this awareness is suppressed or spoken out varies.

The really shame is that Microsoft's software quality appears to me to have gone down the last three years -- at a time when Mac OS X was steadily improving towards a full-fledged 64-bit OS that can seamlessly run 32-bit code for multiple processor architectures, and Linux went from a developer's tool to a user-oriented simple install, and Microsoft's response should have been to make every effort to produce first rate stuff. They flunked it massively.

One example: In installed Win XP recently, virtually in VMWare Fusion, to access a few commercial services that are Win only. XP's install program is by now nearly a decade old, still looks like good ol' NT, but gets the job done. In fact, it communicates fairly well (for someone who has breathed MS OSs since DOS 2.??) what it does, how long it will still take and so forth.

Along comes the time after the OS install to install Internet Explorer 7, needed by me for accessing the mentioned services. The install program for IE7 is one of the most horrible user interfaces I have experienced -- ever. It's a huge window, way larger than is needed. A third is filled with a static IE logo; thanks, but I already know what I downloaded and double-clicked. Below is a green ribbon status bar -- except that it never displayed a status. It stayed in the green fade swirling around that usually indicates the initialization. Above and below that ribbon are some cryptic messages, which sometimes change, and sometime repeat themselves. What the install programs actually does at each moment, which files are written where, and how long the whole process will take is a complete mystery.

This may appear as a minor thing, but I don't think it is. Microsoft does not care anymore about elementary user communication. MS's leadership has no idea why this is needed, and if they still have 1st rate developers, they must be so much under pressure that they cannot finish their projects properly. Resulting in the mess that is Vista, which I had in Boot Camp for four months until the harddrive crashed (unrelated). And I actually used it, or tried to. It does essentially the same as Windows XP, except that it takes three times more resources and is half as stable. Why anyone would prefer Vista over XP with 3rd party security software, I don't understand.

JoeEllison

22nd August 2008, 11:00 PM

I'm guessing operator error... Vista is completely stable and works just fine for me.

elgarak

22nd August 2008, 11:09 PM

I'm guessing operator error... Vista is completely stable and works just fine for me.
Cherish it ... because you're lucky.

Or do you think that a blue screen on a fresh install with latest drivers of Vista SP1 just running there (no application installed or running) is user error? (Happened to me. The machine was just sitting there while I was speaking with some co-workers. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a shade of blue. I turned, and there it was. I had done the install earlier that day and was about to start installing apps. I hadn't even changed any of the standard personalization settings like screen saver or so.)

JoeEllison

22nd August 2008, 11:11 PM

Cherish it ... because you're lucky.

Or do you think that a blue screen on a fresh install with latest drivers of Vista SP1 just running there (no application installed or running) is user error? (Happened to me. The machine was just sitting there while I was speaking with some co-workers. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a shade of blue. I turned, and there it was. I had done the install earlier that day and was about to start installing apps.)
I'm running three computers with Vista right now, and all three are stable, and I had a fourth that I ran for 6 months before recycling it for parts. I'm saying operator error, hardware error, or third-party software error, because Vista works just fine.

elgarak

22nd August 2008, 11:19 PM

I'm running three computers with Vista right now, and all three are stable, and I had a fourth that I ran for 6 months before recycling it for parts. I'm saying operator error, hardware error, or third-party software error, because Vista works just fine.
Bah, humbug. Still just anecdotal evidence ;) .

There's also the slight problem that every single Windows machine will not work properly without 3rd party software. Too many chefs spoil the pudding, to paraphrase an old German proverb.

autumn1971

22nd August 2008, 11:32 PM

shadron

22nd August 2008, 11:39 PM

We really need a religious software argument in here? You just can't attack religious whackos, you have to dun each other?

(It was always my thought that conservatives loved Macs, but I'm not really a political type, but I could have it wrong way around.)

JoeEllison

22nd August 2008, 11:40 PM

Bah, humbug. Still just anecdotal evidence ;) .

There's also the slight problem that every single Windows machine will not work properly without 3rd party software. Too many chefs spoil the pudding, to paraphrase an old German proverb.

Huh? Maybe what you mean is that Mac users are happy to use Apple software, and avoid upgrading their system in any meaningful way, and therefore avoid the inherent pitfalls? I'm guessing that the real problem is in operating styles, and that people who prefer Macs go about computing in a way that is fundamentally different than PC users?

JoeEllison

22nd August 2008, 11:50 PM

Well, I don't ever use the computer for anything useful or neccessary, but I have not seen the inconvienences often talked about by others. I admit that I think Microsoft retarded the advancement of personal computers for a decade or so, but I have never had more than a few second's distraction due to XP, and I click on all sorts of links, and love the pr0n (just kidding, or am I?)
Perhaps it is a matter of office networks, and many programs trying to do things the single program can't, but I have to say that as an individual user, I'm actually happy.
Perhaps my patience with minor failures is a consequence of my not working in an office?

This makes me think of all the fun/misery I've been having with recording my guitar playing. It would all be easier if I was a fan of Line 6 hardware and software. If you like the Line 6 stuff, you can buy an amplifier that plugs directly into your computer, and use it for 100% of your guitar playing needs. The software stuff works on an interface that is identical to the hardware interface... and you can use the software interface to run your hardware, if you like. You buy a recording software suite from Line 6 that is optimized for that interface, and you have a complete solution for every conceivable performance and recording situation. That is, if you're happy with the Line 6 solutions. If you aren't, it means more money, more cables, and hours upon hours of matching inputs and outputs. It is more difficult, and prone to more problems, but if that is what it takes to get what you want then you don't mind so much.

I think that the Mac/PC argument boils down to the same thing. I think there are people for whom the Mac solution is perfect for most or all of their needs. For other folks, the PC works better even with the inherent complications.

elgarak

23rd August 2008, 12:05 AM

Huh? Maybe what you mean is that Mac users are happy to use Apple software, and avoid upgrading their system in any meaningful way, and therefore avoid the inherent pitfalls? I'm guessing that the real problem is in operating styles, and that people who prefer Macs go about computing in a way that is fundamentally different than PC users?
Windows world:
1st party: Me, the user. 2nd party: Microsoft. 3rd party: Hardware manufacturers, who have to make drivers, otherwise all the bells and whistles of the hardware don't work.

Apple world:
Me and Apple; two parties for the same stuff.

I know that a lot people believe that the PC world allows more freedom (but there's actually very little you can do with this freedom, as far as the basic components of, say, a laptop are concerned). The simpler world of the Apple world produces better user experiences. Period.

Plus, I stopped counting the times I have heard excuses of service people blaming the other parties involved ("We cannot do anything about that: That's a Windows problem" and "That's a driver problem. Call the hardware manufacturer.")

JoeEllison

23rd August 2008, 12:10 AM

The simpler world of the Apple world produces better user experiences. Period.
Woo. Pure woo.

Thanks for wasting my time and yours.

Kopji

23rd August 2008, 12:44 AM

The Windows attraction of having a nearly seamless, scalable, computing environment from concept-idea, research, design, manufacturing, marketing, and global implementations is a powerful incentive. The 'PC part' is really just a small cog in a larger computing environment. Apples are really swell, but represent additional training, support, interfaces, and cost. So maybe we are stupid, but we making and selling stuff faster and cheaper than with Apples.

Apple does one thing that annoys me. They almost give away software to educational users and then recover those losses from businesses as much higher prices. Note the price comparison between Microsoft Office for Mac (Student and Teacher edition) and what is charged to businesses. To a business, Windows is MUCH MUCH cheaper.

AbleSugar

23rd August 2008, 01:05 AM

""Anyone Who Thinks Windows Is Superior To Mac OS X Is An Idiot. Period.""
Uh, Ok. But I never had a computer that totally failed me until I got our Mac a few years ago. The last Apple we had was a IIe. I liked the IIe at the time but the newer Mac operating system gave us fits and made me have to take it in two times. We gave it to my Mother in law because she only plays solitaire on it. Couldn’t get our money back.
Anyway, Our Windows machines work just fine for what we do: photos, video, gaming and internet stuff. Sorry you have such a hard time operating yours.

gumboot

23rd August 2008, 01:38 AM

Never any major problems with XP. I use a plethora of software, and push my machine to the limit at times. No issues with printers or routers or anything like that.

I'm thinking user error. Your desktop icons rearranged? That'll be because you've got it set to auto arrange.

I want a system that is "just so", but I'm not computer-keen enough to get involved with a Linux system, so Windows is perfect for me.

In the end it comes down to whether you want an OS that comes pre-packaged to do a general range of activities without issues, or whether you want an OS that runs pretty average in default arrangement, but that you can adjust, tweak, and modify to get it just how you like it, for maximum productivity.

It's like driving a manual or an automatic. The automatic is easy, the manual gives you better performance. If you use it properly.

Bob Blaylock

23rd August 2008, 02:19 AM

Apple does one thing that annoys me. They almost give away software to educational users and then recover those losses from businesses as much higher prices. Note the price comparison between Microsoft Office for Mac (Student and Teacher edition) and what is charged to businesses.

That isn't Apple's doing. Note that the product about which you are complaining is called Microsoft Office; and not Apple Office.

Bob Blaylock

23rd August 2008, 02:37 AM

In the end it comes down to whether you want an OS that comes pre-packaged to do a general range of activities without issues, or whether you want an OS that runs pretty average in default arrangement, but that you can adjust, tweak, and modify to get it just how you like it, for maximum productivity.

It's like driving a manual or an automatic. The automatic is easy, the manual gives you better performance. If you use it properly.

Where did you get the idea that MacOS X is any less able to be tweaked and modified and otherwise fine-tuned than Windows is?

You present a false dichotomy here. Windows has to be tweaked and tuned and modified just to get it to run as well as MacOS X runs right out of the box. MacOS X doesn't have to be tweaked in such a manner, but if you are so inclined, you can do so just as well as you can with Windows, and get even better results.

If you insist on an automotive analogy, it isn't just that MacOS X is a car with an automatic transmission, and Windows is one with a manual; it's more like MacOS X is a brand new 2008 Lincoln Town car, fresh from the dealer's showroom; and Windows is a Pontiac Firebird from the late 1970s or early 1980s with a cracked engine block.

SezMe

23rd August 2008, 02:43 AM

So I happen to be on the Windows machine tonight, looking at some (non-porn) videos,...
No wonder I ignored the rest of the thread. :)

shadron

23rd August 2008, 03:56 AM

Smackety

23rd August 2008, 04:14 AM

I am an idiot. period.

logical muse

23rd August 2008, 04:32 AM

Windows? :catfight: OS X? Bah.

Linux! :D

HarryKeogh

23rd August 2008, 04:49 AM

Use XP at work and on my gf's laptop. My laptop is a mac. They both work very well.

I like them both. Am I allowed to say that?

MrQhuest

23rd August 2008, 05:41 AM

I've been using Linux Ubuntu on 2 of my 3 pcs for the past 6 months. No problems at all. Fast and easy to configure, network and set up wireless. Why pay $200-$500 for an operating system, when you can have one that is both free and legal, and works just as well.
If you want gaming, use Windows. If you want to spend way too much on a good PC, buy a Mac. Me? I just want a cheap computer that works well. I'll take Linux.

MrQ

FFed

23rd August 2008, 09:36 AM

Macs are chick computers.

I wonder if Apple is still deleting threads on their forums from people with Mac problems?

Ron_Tomkins

23rd August 2008, 11:01 AM

Anyone Who Thinks Windows Is Superior To Mac OS X Is An Idiot. Period.

A village idiot?

Dan O.

23rd August 2008, 12:55 PM

I wonder if Apple is still deleting threads on their forums from people with Mac problems?

Since there are plenty of threads in their discussion forum from people with Mac problems, I would guess not. But if the thread turns into a rant about the problem instead of a serious attempt to discuss the problem and find solutions then I would expect it to be deleted.

Mongrel

23rd August 2008, 01:03 PM

I use my PC to play games, Macs don't cut it there.

The OS (Vista) has been stable and the only tweaking I did was to turn off User Access Control, the only problem I have currently is hardware based and that's being sorted.(Yay for warranties)

In a year I'll probably upgrade my processor just because I can :D

Tbone

23rd August 2008, 01:12 PM

As I have never had any non-self-inflicted problems Windows 95, 98, XP, and Vista that I haven't had with a Mac with, I object to your classification of my mental status.

And until more game developers decide to make games even more expensive and develop them for both Macs and PCs and, as a slight connection to the previous point, allow me to upgrade more than just RAM myself, PC's are superior, including their OS's. At least the way I use computers.

Highly Selassie

23rd August 2008, 01:29 PM

I use Windows XP SP3. The only computer trouble I've been having recently is being caused by my power supply. I occasionally encounter cosmetic bugs in the OS, but they are never serious. I have no plans to switch to Mac. When it comes to computers, I'm a control freak. I need to have full control over what components go into my computer, as well as control over the OS. Macs do not provide me with the level of control I desire. Not to mention they can't run Team Fortress 2 (yes I know about Boot Camp, it seems pointless to me). Oh, and there's the little matter of the cost difference between a self-assembled PC and a Mac.

moopet

23rd August 2008, 01:32 PM

Windows world:
1st party: Me, the user. 2nd party: Microsoft. 3rd party: Hardware manufacturers, who have to make drivers, otherwise all the bells and whistles of the hardware don't work.

Apple world:
Me and Apple; two parties for the same stuff.

I know that a lot people believe that the PC world allows more freedom (but there's actually very little you can do with this freedom, as far as the basic components of, say, a laptop are concerned). The simpler world of the Apple world produces better user experiences. Period.

I think it's worth noting that you're saying you don't have freedom with laptop components. There is a certain amount of freedom there, but I see your point. What you're missing is that the real freedom is with the manufacturers. Laptop X and laptop Y can do similar things overall but use entirely different brand/quality/price/power components. With Apple you get a choice of the expensive moderate-speed unit or the very expensive fast one, and that's pretty much all.

Staying out of the mac/pc debate, just wanting to point that bit out.

Tsukasa Buddha

23rd August 2008, 03:03 PM

Meh, it all depends on what you are using your computer for. Like whether you are into multimedia, gaming, office, or whatever.

I would like to get a mac, but they are ridiculously expensive right now.

I mean, sure, the iMac looks cool. But for the same price I can get a PC with 8x the RAM and 4x the HDD.

I mean, sure, a premium is expected. But that is just a little too much.

Their laptops are a little better, but Apple is still doing their "wait sixteen months before doing a major update" thing, which really doesn't work well with pricing.

Also, I find it odd that someone was complaining that education users get too good a deal. Maybe that is for software, but for hardware my discount is $50 bucks on the cheap systems and $100 on the more expensive ones. Which is hardly anything.

I am pretty tech savvy, but even I find my XP to be annoying.

But one thing that is great about buying a mac is that it doesn't come with preloaded with fifty billion junk programs and trials.

Tbone

23rd August 2008, 03:13 PM

But one thing that is great about buying a mac is that it doesn't come with preloaded with fifty billion junk programs and trials.

I haven't experienced this through 4 PC's. Macs, on the other hand, do come preloaded with a number of programs, though most are, at the very least, somwhat fun to screw around with.

Tsukasa Buddha

23rd August 2008, 03:39 PM

I haven't experienced this through 4 PC's. Macs, on the other hand, do come preloaded with a number of programs, though most are, at the very least, somwhat fun to screw around with.

Guess it depends on your distributer. But all of the ones I get are pre-loaded with garbage.

Take, for example, the computer I have now from Toshiba. It didn't come with a Windows recovery disk, it came with a Toshiba/Windows recovery disk. So you can't even delete everything and start with just Windows. It is really annoying.

Macs come with some preloaded software, but unlike the stuff on my computer they are useful (like iLife), and only the iWork is a trial.

75% of the stuff on my computer was trial-ware, most of it was set to start on boot up, and a lot of them just plain sucked.

[/rant]

Though I haven't heard about if it is any easier to stop fifty billion programs from launching from start up on a mac than it is for a pc (which I still have problems with).

erlando

23rd August 2008, 03:49 PM

After getting a Macbook Pro the only thing I use my desktop XP machine for is gaming. Everything else is on the Mac.

I left Windows and I'm not looking back. OS X just works better for me I guess. But it's generally more of a user experience-thing than anything else. It's been almost two years since I reinstalled the XP machine.

In the end it's a question of using the tool that makes you the most productive. OS X does this for me. It may very well be that Vista does it for other people.

Safe-Keeper

23rd August 2008, 04:33 PM

Anyone Who Thinks Windows Is Superior To Mac OS X Is An Idiot. Period.Only on JREF could someone start off a thread like this and not have it turn into a massive fanboy fight:D.

technoextreme

23rd August 2008, 04:33 PM

Unbelievable.
Yeah right..... :rolleyes:. I have a special term for people like you and that is Mac morons. Apple will never get my bussiness if they are lazy enough to write crappy software for their competitor. And by crappy I mean the worst problems I've ever had with a Windows machine could be directly attributed to Steve Jobs and his company.
I use my PC to play games, Macs don't cut it there.
I use my PC to do actual work that Macs can't do with a rediculous amount of time to configure!!!! And by configure I mean install Windows on. But if I were extensively doing image manipulation I would use a Mac.

Mongrel

23rd August 2008, 04:56 PM

Tsukasa Buddha

23rd August 2008, 06:56 PM

Another point, that someone else touched upon;

I can go to my favourite retailer and buy bits, from those bits I can build a PC to exactly the specifications that I want. Whether it's a [rule 10] hot gaming machine or a rock solid e-mail and 'Office' machine for me Mum. It could even be a "Budget gaming machine that's got room to expand when I have some more cash", the customisability is a huge plus in my book.

Yeah, that's quite true.

But with customizability comes the hardware compatibility issues and all that, so I can see why Apple wouldn't want to open up their OS to any machine.

Also, I find that the average person never really customizes their computer all that much anyway. They are more likely to just buy a new computer.

But it's kinda like the Linux issue as well. Where some people like bare bone distributions that they can shape to their hearts content and other like bigger ones like Ubuntu that come with a lot of stuff by default.

Tsukasa Buddha

23rd August 2008, 06:58 PM

Yeah right..... :rolleyes:. I have a special term for people like you and that is Mac morons. Apple will never get my bussiness if they are lazy enough to write crappy software for their competitor. And by crappy I mean the worst problems I've ever had with a Windows machine could be directly attributed to Steve Jobs and his company.

Well, that makes me like Apple even more; they are devious!

I use my PC to do actual work that Macs can't do with a rediculous amount of time to configure!!!! And by configure I mean install Windows on. But if I were extensively doing image manipulation I would use a Mac.

What do you mean by "actual work"? For some that is photography, for others video, for others 3D rendering, etc.

balrog666

24th August 2008, 01:04 PM

I'd rather talk about the relative irrelevancy of my car's gas mileage.

Michelle Lyon

24th August 2008, 01:25 PM

(It was always my thought that conservatives loved Macs, but I'm not really a political type, but I could have it wrong way around.)

In my corner of the world, neither Windows nor Macs are "superior" to one another. The preference has to do more with the task at hand. Macs are good for art and graphics, and Windows are good for class projects such as presentations or spreadsheets.

I've found it beneficial to know both systems, so that if I ever have a file compatibility issue, I can fix it. :)

PS. Balrog, I love that sig!

theMark

24th August 2008, 03:59 PM

That said, I prefer Mac. Force of habit, maybe. I've started my computer "career" (more like "hobby") with ZX Spectrum, went to Amiga, then Apple (printing office). Got a PC (XP) at home, for the occasional programming task that needs to run on Windows. Got a few macs, for everything else.

Switching isn't all that easy if the software you're using is locked to one platform (in this case, Mac ;) )... but apart from this, my Macs have given me considerably less trouble than the single PC I own. So now I'm running XP in an emulation on my Mac.

The only thing that gets me every year or five is when a PC RAM bar dies in the Mac. But that's what backups are for (it's amazing how much havoc an aging RAM can wreak on a hard disk...)

Uh, sorry. What was the topic again? Okay, if the dividing line is the "Windows is SUPERIOR" part, then I can sorta/kinda agree with the OP, though I might've sugarcoated it a bit more.

From personal anecdote, I can relay the story of a friend that last year got his very first Mac, and he's wholly happy, doing his video editing and web surfing on a Mini now. Used to build his own PC's, for nearly a decade. Now he's reached the "life's too short for fiddling with this stuff, I need the presentation done NOW" phase :)

Blackadder

24th August 2008, 04:46 PM

Why Windows is superior to Mac:

I use computers since 1986, since 1995 as an adult.

So far Dos, and later Windows based computers have always fitted my needs, even with their flaws. In those 20 odd years I hardly ever had serious problems. For example I now use a single core PC from 2006 (basically the very last single core design, dunno the exact specs, but it is the fastest single core cpu + a modest 2Gb ram and some graphics card that was very good in 2006) I run win XP. It's now 2008 and I haven't even reinstalled my system in 20 months. oh and it still runs smooth. I am enough of a geek that I would notice a mere 5 seconds increase in boot time. The system is stable, and fast. I use some protection and a few tune up utilities, but they run themselves. I remember spending a whole day optimizing my PC when it was new, and never needed to do that again.

It runs all software I throw at it.

I never have to go through all kinds of trouble because something is not designed for a Mac. Or because some plug in doesn't work.

I ran Assassins Creed on this machine, even though the installer said it needed a duel core?!

Apple mac might or might not be able to give me the same, but so far I wouldn't know. Apple has always been more expensive and more limited in use in the past 20 years. They (apple) never have been able to convince me they are superior because the need never was there for me. DOS Windows works for me!

Sure If my PC broke down every week I would have considered trying something else.

My PCs never broke down every week, in fact it their record is like once a year at most. That's why for me Windows is superior to anything else.

(I remember one bad expereince with Windows about 7 years ago, but that wa snot windows fault. At that time I had a very old PC and no money for a better one, so I bought the lowest of the lowest entry system clone for about €189 or so. That was rubbish and I only used it for a few months, getting a real system as soon as I got my first paycheck at a new job. I usually buy a PC in around €1000,- every 4-5 years

JoeEllison

24th August 2008, 05:56 PM

Tsukasa Buddha

24th August 2008, 07:37 PM

erlando

25th August 2008, 01:56 AM

Why Windows is superior to Mac:

..SNIP...

Apple mac might or might not be able to give me the same, but so far I wouldn't know.

...SNIP...

So.. You've never actually tried a Mac? What are you basing your statements on then? :confused:

erlando

25th August 2008, 02:01 AM

The only time my PC ever screwed up was when I tried to install multiple operating systems on multiple hard drives. Otherwise, I go from completely off to surfing the web in under 90 seconds. I rarely turn it off, it runs for weeks at a time with no problems, and does almost whatever I want it to.

Good for you. My Macbook does exactly the same. So your point is..?

This is why I hate OS wars. They are pointless. Use whatever OS fits your needs best.

What actually would make sense was to discuss what OS X / Windows / Linux / ObscureOS could learn from eachother and do better. But this would mean an objective discussion... :rolleyes:

Tbone

25th August 2008, 02:06 AM

Good for you. My Macbook does exactly the same. So your point is..?

This is why I hate OS wars. They are pointless. Use whatever OS fits your needs best.

His point was exactly what your point was.

Sideroxylon

25th August 2008, 02:58 AM

I could quite happily buy a Mac these days despite the fact I was once turned off the brand by the religious fervour of their user base - that and the greater variety Windows software. I feel extremely let down by Vista because of the difficulty in getting common devices to work including a HP camera, a MS mouse and a SATA-2 DVD driver - all of which Windows XP found drivers for painlessly. There may well be fixes but why should I have to piss around to find them given theses devices work in XP?

CFLarsen

25th August 2008, 04:06 AM

So, the vast majority of computer users are...idiots?

No wonder Mac users are so often portrayed as elitist snobs...

We really need a religious software argument in here? You just can't attack religious whackos, you have to dun each other?

(It was always my thought that conservatives loved Macs, but I'm not really a political type, but I could have it wrong way around.)

You know, that's actually a good point. Mac users are not these liberal-thinking creatures. Sure, they sip cappuchinos, and are generally obnoxious in all their faux technorati mannerisms - but deep down, they are actually more conservative than Pat Buchanan, when it comes to their computers.

The most (unintended) ironic commercial ever was the 1984 Apple ad. If you want Big Brother to control your computer, Apple is your best bet. Nobody - certainly neither Microsoft or IBM - excerts as much control over their customers as Apple does: Not just over their wallets (which are always thin after any Mac purchase), but over their minds as well.

Windows world:
1st party: Me, the user. 2nd party: Microsoft. 3rd party: Hardware manufacturers, who have to make drivers, otherwise all the bells and whistles of the hardware don't work.

Apple world:
Me and Apple; two parties for the same stuff.

I know that a lot people believe that the PC world allows more freedom (but there's actually very little you can do with this freedom, as far as the basic components of, say, a laptop are concerned). The simpler world of the Apple world produces better user experiences. Period.

Plus, I stopped counting the times I have heard excuses of service people blaming the other parties involved ("We cannot do anything about that: That's a Windows problem" and "That's a driver problem. Call the hardware manufacturer.")

Do you like to have a choice, whenever you buy something? Clothes, cars, food, drinks, entertainment, books, etc.?

Woo. Pure woo.

Thanks for wasting my time and yours.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it woo - but there certainly are religious aspects to some Mac users' argumentation for their preferred computer platform.

erlando

25th August 2008, 05:49 AM

You know, that's actually a good point. Mac users are not these liberal-thinking creatures. Sure, they sip cappuchinos, and are generally obnoxious in all their faux technorati mannerisms - but deep down, they are actually more conservative than Pat Buchanan, when it comes to their computers.

You're painting with an awfully broad brush here..

I wouldn't go so far as to call it woo - but there certainly are religious aspects to some Mac users' argumentation for their preferred computer platform.

Ditto Windows users.

moopet

25th August 2008, 06:18 AM

Almo

25th August 2008, 06:45 AM

I fought with a WinXP installation last night for a friend. Windows XP install disc does not include SATA harddrive drivers. So you have to have a floppy with the SATA drivers on it so the installer can even see the drive to install on. It didn't recognize the motherboard, either, and didn't tell me. So I had to hunt down motherboard drivers to get it to recognize the ethernet port. Which means if I hadn't had a functioning computer next to it with USB memory stick, I would have been SOOL. In the end it took me about 5 or 6 hours to get a working XP installation with network access. That's without even installing anti-virus or any other programs.

Apple: homogeneity of hardware. You stick in the OSX disc, you install. End of story. I don't buy the argument I get from PC people about competition in the parts market. That just leads to the driver hell that is Windows. Some people as mentioned above get lucky and their Win machines work fine. Others have loads of trouble. If Windows is so fragile that "operating styles" can make a Windows machine unstable and unusable, this is a failure of the OS to be user-friendly.

I'm a power user, since I'm a programmer, and this doesn't cause problems with my Apple OS installations. I didn't have trouble with any of the Mac OSs, except maybe 8.1 (which was very quickly fixed with an update) going back to 7.5.3. One time I had to perform a clean install of 7.5.5. Guess what? It took all of 20 minutes, and I didn't have to reinstall any programs or anything. Just clean out the OS folder, put in a new one, and BOOM! My problem was fixed (it was a printer installation problem).

The real problem as far as I can tell is the complexity of the problem Windows has to solve. It needs to work on a bewildering combination of different hardware. One friend of mine had a three-way conflict between his motherboard, network card and sound card. Change out any one of the three, and the problem would be fixed.

I recently forked $3000 for a MacPro. I was wondering as I dragged that 65-pound box home if I would be unhappy with the cost/benefit ratio. I wasn't. After fixing one of my main complaints about OSX (can't turn off mouse acceleration), it was smooth sailing. I've been very happy to have a computer that I like. I even have an XP installation under BootCamp in case I ever need a Win-only app. I also know that it will continue to work with at least 5-years of OSX upgrades. Apple OS upgrades don't consume exponential quantities of resources. Try taking a computer from 2002 and installing Vista on it.

There're two reasons to get windows: more programs are available, and you can get the hardware for less money. The programs I want are available for Mac, and I don't mind paying more for better hardware. So Windows makes no sense at all for me. As far as usability, I don't think Windows makes sense for anyone but power users since they can figure out how to deal with the problems that can come up.

moopet

25th August 2008, 06:52 AM

I think there are two arguments here: Windows vs MacOS and PC vs Mac hardware. It's important to differentiate.

Almo

25th August 2008, 07:31 AM

I think there are two arguments here: Windows vs MacOS and PC vs Mac hardware. It's important to differentiate.

You're right, but they are inextricably linked, since the two OSs have traits born of their native hardware.

Dan O.

25th August 2008, 09:03 AM

Hellbound

25th August 2008, 12:39 PM

Maybe someone here can help me. Where I work we have around 200 user PCs. Several of these get replaced each month as users upgrade to new hardware. To meet the corporate security standards, there are several pages of configuration instructions that must be applied to every new machine.

My suggestion has been that they could make one master install with the security configuration and clone that disk for each user machine. The windows techs say that won't work because the user machines aren't all the same.

I hardly ever work with windows but my experience with other operating systems has been that this form of cloning works as long as the underlying hardware architecture is the same. In the case of Mac OS, it even works between architectures so the same disk image can boot both the PPC and Intel based macs.

Are my windows techs wrong about this or is there some fundamental reason that one install image cannot be used to boot any windows PC?

It can be done. This is how the Army works their systems. But, it takes a lot of time to configure the image properly, and it ends up being larger than a "dedicated" image.

What you have to do is create an image on one system. Configure it, install all drivers and software, etc. Then, you remove all the devices in device manager (not that this leaves the driver files in the directory), shut down, and image the system. Then, you load the image on system 2 and reinstall the drivers for that syste. Basically, you have to get drivers for every piece of hardware in the image. The military uses a small number (about 20 or so) of different computer systems, so it's not too hard to get the multi-image for them (most of the basic drivers are already in the OS, in any case).

You can also make a system-neutral image (no special drivers), and just carry a driver disk around with the specific drivers that are needed for various bits of hardware. This is basically the same as above, install and configure a system then remove all the drivers and image. Once the image is applied and the new system started, it should auto-detect the hardware and start installing the drivers needed.

cafink

25th August 2008, 01:15 PM

I don't buy the argument I get from PC people about competition in the parts market. That just leads to the driver hell that is Windows.

Yet you admit later in the very same post that Apple's hardware is much more expensive than the PC equivalent. You obviously feel that the improved compatibility is worth the increased price, but others disagree. The fact remains that hardware prices are, unsurprisingly, substantially better for the platform in which parts manufacturers compete with one another.

joobie

25th August 2008, 01:34 PM

you all got trolled.

Blackadder

25th August 2008, 01:46 PM

So.. You've never actually tried a Mac? What are you basing your statements on then? :confused:

Read again please.

I say something like this:

A. PC has always be perfect for me. 100% happy.

B. Mac = lesser known + has some limitations + more expensive. (Why would I risk it, change the winning team?)

C. No need for me to buy a Mac.

(Of course I have used a few during the past 20 years. At friends, work or school you run into a Mac from time to time.)

cafink

25th August 2008, 01:55 PM

What you actually said was, "Why Windows is superior to Mac," not "Why Windows is good enough for me."

Blackadder

25th August 2008, 02:03 PM

What you actually said was, "Why Windows is superior to Mac," not "Why Windows is good enough for me."

it was left as an exercise to the reader to conclude that it being cheaper, more familiar for me and good enough for me are the reasons why I can say it is superior (for me, if you want)

jp834618

25th August 2008, 03:26 PM

OS X and XP and Vista all work great if you know what you're doing. OS X happens to be my favorite but I use them all without problems. It sounds like you're having a PICNIC error.. Problem In Chair Not In Computer.

Damien Evans

25th August 2008, 08:45 PM

If I could play all the games I wanted to on mac I might consider it, but until then why would I bother?

four elevener

25th August 2008, 09:42 PM

Why not combine the best of both so everyone would shut up and get along? It could be called Macinwin...or Winmac...or Macdows...or Winintosh.

BenBurch

25th August 2008, 11:20 PM

While I agree with the OP, don't you think that you'd convince more people with an argument of merits?

BenBurch

25th August 2008, 11:23 PM

Why not combine the best of both so everyone would shut up and get along? It could be called Macinwin...or Winmac...or Macdows...or Winintosh.

Right now, this Mac is running MacOS X, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows XP. At the same time. So, you CAN have it both (all three) ways.

arthwollipot

26th August 2008, 12:16 AM

Anyone who thinks that any one operating system is superior to any other operating system, generally, for all users and in all circumstances, ever, is an idiot. Period.

shadron

26th August 2008, 02:14 AM

Ayup. That's why they call their marketing people evangelists.

richardm

26th August 2008, 03:37 AM

One time I had to perform a clean install of 7.5.5. Guess what? It took all of 20 minutes, and I didn't have to reinstall any programs or anything. Just clean out the OS folder, put in a new one, and BOOM! My problem was fixed (it was a printer installation problem).

See, you present this as a positive experience, but one could equally well retort "What, you had to reinstall the operating system to fix a problem with a printer?!" ;)

I think I'm right in saying that Mac market share is increasing. I'm going to be bold and predict that as a more general range of users start to take on Macs we're going to see the idea that Macs are bombproof paragons of ease-of-use dispelled, rather.

four elevener

26th August 2008, 05:31 AM

Right now, this Mac is running MacOS X, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows XP. At the same time. So, you CAN have it both (all three) ways.

Is it called Winlinintosh?

gumboot

26th August 2008, 05:35 AM

gumboot

26th August 2008, 05:43 AM

[QUOTE=Michelle Lyon;3973508]In my corner of the world, neither Windows nor Macs are "superior" to one another. The preference has to do more with the task at hand. Macs are good for art and graphics, and Windows are good for class projects such as presentations or spreadsheets./QUOTE]

I've never got this.
Apple and Microsoft make different things, both are suitable for most people.
But someone always carts out the idea that Macs do better graphics. I just don't understand why this perpetuates.

My first experience with comparing graphics systems, about 1996/7 involved
Macs, NT boxes and SunOS workstations. Only the Unix machines had dedicated graphics boards, which cost arms and legs. Out of the three, the Windows machines were a minimum of twice as fast at using Photoshop 3 on raw images of about 1GB. The macs got relegated to playing Risk most of the time.

Since then, Apple have made more visible solutions for, for example, paper-size portrait monitors, well-advertised software for video editing, etc.

But when it comes to it, the difference is swings and roundabouts. Name one bit of software for Mac in the video/photo editing field that doesn't exist for Windows or Linux and someone will come back with something reciprocal.

It does puzzle me.

The "Macs are better for graphics" maxim is a result of Mac heavily targeting the advertising and design industries who are incredibly image conscious, to the point that having a trendy office full of cool looking computers is much more important than having a functional office full of powerful computers.

I've worked in enough of them to know that the last thing they are concerned about is usability. Just trying to find the frikken bathroom in places like that is a mission and a half.

Any of the more serious places - Post Production houses, Digital Effects houses, and sound engineering facilities - use PCs.

HarryKeogh

26th August 2008, 06:17 AM

Any of the more serious places - Post Production houses, Digital Effects houses, and sound engineering facilities - use PCs.

Personal anecdote: My friend is a freelance editor in NYC and he bounces from firm to firm and indeed, they all use PCs.

Modified

26th August 2008, 06:22 AM

I think I'm right in saying that Mac market share is increasing.

I develop a moderately popular IDE. Here are our download numbers (about 80% students, 20% professionals):

|%Mac|%Not Mac or Windows
2002|2.5|11.9
2003|2.3|12.2
2004|2.0|11.3
2005|2.3|10.1
2006|2.4|7.9
2007|3.9|6.2
2008|5.1|6.5
So for our user base, Mac use has increased a lot in the last two years. The decrease in "not Mac or Windows" is due to decreased use of UNIX (mainly Solaris) in Universities.

logical muse

26th August 2008, 07:27 AM

Weta Digital - one of the world's premium special effects companies. No Macs. They all use PCs.

Weta Digital - one of the world's premium special effects companies. No Macs. They all use PCs running Linux.

Fixed it for you. :D

jsiv

26th August 2008, 10:15 AM

coalesce

26th August 2008, 11:43 AM

So, the vast majority of computer users are...idiots?

No wonder Mac users are so often portrayed as elitist snobs...

You know, that's actually a good point. Mac users are not these liberal-thinking creatures. Sure, they sip cappuchinos, and are generally obnoxious in all their faux technorati mannerisms - but deep down, they are actually more conservative than Pat Buchanan, when it comes to their computers.

Wow. Seriously, have you considered applying for the $1M, since you clearly know just so much about me and my computing and lifestyle habits?

I am not liberal, I vote independently. Some things I'm liberal about, some things I'm conservative about--depends on the issue, not the candidate.

I do not drink coffee, much less cappuccino. I love the smell, but hate the taste.

Given that you have never met me, nor I you, what "faux technorati mannerisms" have I displayed? That I chose to buy a Mac given that it was the first computer I was trained on and wanted to have one of my very own? Is it a "faux technorati mannerism" that I wish everyone have the same rewarding and trouble-free computing experience on their machine/platform of choice that I have with my Mac?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Michael

Ohmer

26th August 2008, 12:11 PM

Maybe someone here can help me. Where I work we have around 200 user PCs. Several of these get replaced each month as users upgrade to new hardware. To meet the corporate security standards, there are several pages of configuration instructions that must be applied to every new machine.

My suggestion has been that they could make one master install with the security configuration and clone that disk for each user machine. The windows techs say that won't work because the user machines aren't all the same.

I hardly ever work with windows but my experience with other operating systems has been that this form of cloning works as long as the underlying hardware architecture is the same. In the case of Mac OS, it even works between architectures so the same disk image can boot both the PPC and Intel based macs.

Are my windows techs wrong about this or is there some fundamental reason that one install image cannot be used to boot any windows PC?

Your windows techs are correct to a point. I work in the IT department of a small college that is 50/50 Mac/Windows. Every computer that is purchased for employees is delivered with an disk image that we create. We solved the Windows problem by essentially artificially creating the Apple situation. We control what PC hardware is purchase. Once you have a standard hardware configuration for PC's you can create an image that works for it. It was not an easy fight but we eventually won.

We have also found that when you have standards and spend a comparable amount on hardware, PC's are more reliable. Our repair people spend more time on Macs than PCs. This is mostly because Apple makes stupid design decisions to make the machines pretty.

Full disclosure, I am posting this from a Mac that I am happy with.

Wudang

26th August 2008, 01:02 PM

Anyone who thinks that any one operating system other than z/OS is superior to any other operating system, generally, for all users and in all circumstances, ever, is an idiot. Period.

Fixed it for you.

coalesce

26th August 2008, 01:04 PM

Our repair people spend more time on Macs than PCs. This is mostly because Apple makes stupid design decisions to make the machines pretty.

Full disclosure, I am posting this from a Mac that I am happy with.

I'm curious: what repair problems have they encountered, and which machines were they repairing? I've had a couple, mainly due to my own mechanical incompetence. Were my experiences simply my own, or just bad design?

Michael

Ohmer

26th August 2008, 02:22 PM

I'm curious: what repair problems have they encountered, and which machines were they repairing? I've had a couple, mainly due to my own mechanical incompetence. Were my experiences simply my own, or just bad design?

Michael

I don't know the models off the top of my head. They generally bitch about heat problems and things being hard to get to. Their general consensus is that a lot of logic board replacements could have been avoided if they had proper heat management.

Arthur Denton

26th August 2008, 05:30 PM

I've abandoned windows for Linux a few years ago. It was good while it lasted - I mean, I had to poke on every corner to actually make my computer run, but after it started going, nothing could stop it. I had a Pentium III back then. The only thing I regret is that, when I've re-installed windows, because of my family, I had not bought a new hard drive to install linux together with it.

I never used OS X, but friends of mine who work with graphics say it is cool, but it also have its bugs, only far less frequent than windows.

I wouldn't say I hate windows too, I think that for the insane amount of things hanging from your windows manager, with all the halted and continued projects from Microsoft in the original code for every version, it is a true miracle that it runs so "flawless" as it does, even if this flawless means with a halt every now and then.

arthwollipot

26th August 2008, 10:26 PM

I'm convinced the entire "Macs are better for graphics" thing is total nonsense...

I've been working in media for a long time, and every single production person and design place uses Macs, but it's all because they're image obsessed, and Apple has marketed itself well as "cool".

But step into any serious place, like a Post Production facility, and all you see is PCs. Premiere, Avid, After Effects, Pro Tools, Maya, Flame, every high-end professional program you can imagine, and all on PCs.

The school I trained at is a certified Avid training centre, and Avid provided us full edit suites with custom Avid hardware running Film Composer, and all on... Windows.

Weta Digital - one of the world's premium special effects companies. No Macs. They all use PCs.Once upon a time, Macs were superior to PCs in their graphics capability. Macs had full-colour desktops when PCs were still struggling with CGA. Back in 1990, anyone who wanted to use a computer to do graphics had to get a Mac (or pay the really big bucks for a Solaris) because it was the only thing available that could do graphics.

These days it's much of a muchness. Any computer can now do good graphics, regardless of the OS. But there's a lingering opinion - perhaps tradition would be a better word - that Macs are better at graphics than PCs.

moopet

27th August 2008, 04:03 AM

I don't know the models off the top of my head. They generally bitch about heat problems and things being hard to get to. Their general consensus is that a lot of logic board replacements could have been avoided if they had proper heat management.

Speaking as someone who, until recently, spent years repairing laptops, I can say that Macs are deliberately designed to be difficult to repair. That's not an overstatement.
For example, changing a faulty CD drive in a powerbook will take at least an hour. Changing a CD drive in a Fujitsu, Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, IBM, Advent, HP etc will take about five minutes (I'm deliberately not mentioning Sony).

The newest macbooks have user-changeable hard drives and RAM, which only involve taking off the battery and a few screws to remove. The older ones would involve upwards of 60 screws of 10 different types, and the use of what Apple calls a "spudger". Oh, and sometimes a magnet-on-a-stick. Officially. I'm not jesting.

Most (8/10?) PC laptops have the hard drive and RAM under a flap on the back, and have done so for years.

Quote from Apple for replacing the DVD-reader/CD combo drive in an iBook last year ~ £200. We did it for about £60, using a generic drive and about an hour's labour.

Basically, if a Mac goes wrong and you don't have AppleUberSupport(TM) then you might as well chop off your feet.

Kotatsu

27th August 2008, 04:09 AM

(It was always my thought that conservatives loved Macs, but I'm not really a political type, but I could have it wrong way around.)

In my experience, the exact opposite is true: conservatives and liberals use PCs, but all my friends on the left prefer a Mac, provided they can afford one (and for quite a lot of them, they have saved up money to be able to afford one). That is, unless they use Linux or something else.

I, too, use a Mac, and prefer it immensely to my old PC, but I think that was just because that PC was sort of crap. The Mac I have, while being a work computer, fills a majority of my needs, and is also more aesthetically pleasing than the 486 horridness I grew up with. I realise Windows has changed since then, though.

One point: I don't know the details, but quite a lot of the basic programs for phylogenetic inference work only on Mac. I have heard that Macs are, or used to be, better at that sort of thing, but I don't know enough to even form an opinion about if that is true or not. Still, many of the smaller programs I need to do co-evolution analyses runs only on Windows.

You know, that's actually a good point. Mac users are not these liberal-thinking creatures. Sure, they sip cappuchinos, and are generally obnoxious in all their faux technorati mannerisms - but deep down, they are actually more conservative than Pat Buchanan, when it comes to their computers.

Which has nothing at all to do with whether or not they are conservative in other issues in life. Nor does the rest of your characterisation fit on any of them Mac users I know who openly prefers Macs over PCs. Is there actually any subject you are well-informed on?

HarryKeogh

27th August 2008, 05:14 AM

I develop a moderately popular IDE. Here are our download numbers (about 80% students, 20% professionals):

|%Mac|%Not Mac or Windows
2002|2.5|11.9
2003|2.3|12.2
2004|2.0|11.3
2005|2.3|10.1
2006|2.4|7.9
2007|3.9|6.2
2008|5.1|6.5So for our user base, Mac use has increased a lot in the last two years. The decrease in "not Mac or Windows" is due to decreased use of UNIX (mainly Solaris) in Universities.

Here's a very recent article that backs up your observations... (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26392001/)

“If you look at just the U.S. home market, Apple had a 10.4 percent share at the end of the first quarter of this year, compared to 7.5 percent for the first quarter of 2007, and 5.4 percent for the first quarter of 2006,” Smulders said. Among small businesses, defined as having 100 or fewer employees, Apple has been “gaining some ground, too,” he said.
The company had a 4.4 percent share of the small business market in the United States at the end of the first quarter this year, compared to 2.4 percent in 2007, and 2.1 percent two years ago, according to Gartner.

A doubling of the market shares in just a couple of years...that's pretty impressive.

coalesce

27th August 2008, 07:21 AM

I don't know the models off the top of my head. They generally bitch about heat problems and things being hard to get to. Their general consensus is that a lot of logic board replacements could have been avoided if they had proper heat management.

The problems I had happened when I tried to add a second internal hard drive to my Power PC G5 tower. The space alloted to adding in an additional hard drive was very tight (hence the less-than-stellar design), in my opinion, and my curse of having ten semi-functional thumbs did nothing to help matters.

When I upgraded my older G3 Blue and White tower a few years ago, that was simplicity itself. I wound up adding a larger internal hard drive, more memory, an internal DVD burner and a new processor (so much for Macs not being able to be upgraded!).

Michael

Darat

27th August 2008, 07:22 AM

I have and use both Macs and PCs and both OS/X and Windows - they both suck!

Yalius

27th August 2008, 11:15 AM

Once upon a time, Macs were superior to PCs in their graphics capability. Macs had full-colour desktops when PCs were still struggling with CGA. Back in 1990, anyone who wanted to use a computer to do graphics had to get a Mac (or pay the really big bucks for a Solaris) because it was the only thing available that could do graphics.

These days it's much of a muchness. Any computer can now do good graphics, regardless of the OS. But there's a lingering opinion - perhaps tradition would be a better word - that Macs are better at graphics than PCs.

Ummmm... what? The Macintosh II, the first color mac, was introduced in 1987, same year as VGA. XGA was introduced in 1990. And IBM had the Professional Graphics Controller way back in 1984. And I'd hardly think that $10,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II) for a fully color-capable Mac II was any real cost improvement over a Sun station.

Almo

27th August 2008, 11:16 AM

Yet you admit later in the very same post that Apple's hardware is much more expensive than the PC equivalent. You obviously feel that the improved compatibility is worth the increased price, but others disagree. The fact remains that hardware prices are, unsurprisingly, substantially better for the platform in which parts manufacturers compete with one another.

Sure the prices are better. The price on $10 shoes is better than on $150 shoes. Guess which shoes are in fact better? My argument is that the hassle is not worth it to ordinary users who may not have enough information to evaluate the tradeoff.

Almo

27th August 2008, 11:25 AM

See, you present this as a positive experience, but one could equally well retort "What, you had to reinstall the operating system to fix a problem with a printer?!" ;)

It had to do with Appletalk dealing with both networking and printer use. We had two macs on the network, and we got a conflict of some sort due to a problem with extensions, the weak link in old System 7.

The point is, when you need to fix something, it's generally easy. Reinstalling Windows can be very challenging, AND it requires you to reinstall everything else. In the event of the need for a reinstall, the reason for it is irrelevant given the amount of time and effort needed for reinstalling the respective OSs.

YeahDude

27th August 2008, 11:31 AM

Anyone Who Thinks Windows Is Superior To Mac OS X Is An Idiot. Period.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
-Obiwan Kenobi
-Star Wars III

hehe

CFLarsen

27th August 2008, 11:31 AM

Which has nothing at all to do with whether or not they are conservative in other issues in life.

Which is what I said.

Nor does the rest of your characterisation fit on any of them Mac users I know who openly prefers Macs over PCs.

Unverifiable personal anecdote.

Is there actually any subject you are well-informed on?

Plenty. What do you want to know about? Humor?

Cleon

27th August 2008, 11:48 AM

Unverifiable personal anecdote.

Which is what 99% of this thread is, anyway.

Kotatsu

27th August 2008, 11:54 AM

Unverifiable personal anecdote.

Certainly not. I can with great ease put you in contact with more than 20 people I know who openly prefers Mac over PC. Alternatively, if you prefer that, I could approach them myself and then send you their responses. None of them fit your description. It is unverifiable only if you refuse to verify it.

Ashles

27th August 2008, 11:54 AM

I'm convinced the entire "Macs are better for graphics" thing is total nonsense...

I've been working in media for a long time, and every single production person and design place uses Macs, but it's all because they're image obsessed, and Apple has marketed itself well as "cool".

But step into any serious place, like a Post Production facility, and all you see is PCs. Premiere, Avid, After Effects, Pro Tools, Maya, Flame, every high-end professional program you can imagine, and all on PCs.
This is very interesting and true. I work in a Design/Presentations department. Our Design department have Macs although no-one has ever really explained why, as we have done some of their overflow InDesign work on our PCs with no problems.
And when they have more specialist jobs (such as 3-D animation, video editing/manipulation, flash animations etc.) over it comes back to the presentations department on our PCs. This is very high end work for one of the world's largest banks so it needs to be done reliably, quickly and to a very high standard.

Apple marketing gets on my nerves to be honest, and the extent to which people buy into it is weird, almost as though Macs cannot possibly crash and run every package in the world faster and better.

(It reminds me of the iPhone advert. Look a phone... and you can even surf the internet on it!
Er great, just like many of us have been doing for about 5 years on non-Mac phones. Which also work outside of WiFi zones. - I know they have since worked on that but at the time it did make me laugh).

If you are prepared to spend X amount of money on a computer I honestly don't know why you would spend the money on a Mac other than they are prettier. Pound for pound as far as I can see you would be better off buying a PC custom built to your specific requirements.

jnelso99

27th August 2008, 12:05 PM

Sure the prices are better. The price on $10 shoes is better than on $150 shoes. Guess which shoes are in fact better? My argument is that the hassle is not worth it to ordinary users who may not have enough information to evaluate the tradeoff.

"More expensive" does not necessarily equal "better".

Checkmite

27th August 2008, 12:53 PM

I love Microsoft, because Microsoft makes the best home Flight Simulator software you can buy. Microsoft is therefore, by extension, cooler than Apple.

Darat

27th August 2008, 01:08 PM

...snip...

The point is, when you need to fix something, it's generally easy. Reinstalling Windows can be very challenging, AND it requires you to reinstall everything else. In the event of the need for a reinstall, the reason for it is irrelevant given the amount of time and effort needed for reinstalling the respective OSs.

No it doesn't (at least not for XP) it is very rare that you would have to reinstall anything but the Windows components.

CFLarsen

27th August 2008, 01:21 PM

Which is what 99% of this thread is, anyway.

It is also 99% humor impaired.

Certainly not. I can with great ease put you in contact with more than 20 people I know who openly prefers Mac over PC. Alternatively, if you prefer that, I could approach them myself and then send you their responses. None of them fit your description. It is unverifiable only if you refuse to verify it.

So what? I can find many more people who openly prefers PCs over Macs.

What does that prove? Nothing?

coalesce

27th August 2008, 01:32 PM

It is also 99% humor impaired.

Really? That was humor?

Really?

Michael

CFLarsen

27th August 2008, 01:34 PM

Really? That was humor?

Maybe...

Darat

27th August 2008, 01:40 PM

The Mac's reputation for "graphics" all stems from the original advantage it did have i.e. Aldus Pagemaker and then later on QuarkXpress.

coalesce

27th August 2008, 01:59 PM

Maybe...

If humor was your intent, then I apologize for my response to you.

Michael

Kotatsu

27th August 2008, 02:00 PM

So what? I can find many more people who openly prefers PCs over Macs.

What does that prove? Nothing?

It seems you have forgotten what we are talking about. I was saying that your description of Mac-users didn't fit on any of the people I know who openly prefer Mac over PC. I then offered to put you in contact with (some or all of) them, so that you might verify this yourself. Whether or not there are bazillions of people who prefer PC over Mac, or vice versa, is not really relevant to the discussion; the personalities of my Mac-preferring friends does not change because you show me a list of people who prefer PCs.

CFLarsen

27th August 2008, 02:10 PM

It seems you have forgotten what we are talking about. I was saying that your description of Mac-users didn't fit on any of the people I know who openly prefer Mac over PC. I then offered to put you in contact with (some or all of) them, so that you might verify this yourself. Whether or not there are bazillions of people who prefer PC over Mac, or vice versa, is not really relevant to the discussion; the personalities of my Mac-preferring friends does not change because you show me a list of people who prefer PCs.

No True Scotsman likes Macs.

Cleon

27th August 2008, 02:13 PM

It is also 99% humor impaired.

Very true.

Really? That was humor?

Dunno, but this definitely is:

No True Scotsman likes Macs.

You know...Yeah, I'm gonna have to nominate that one. :D

Kotatsu

27th August 2008, 02:31 PM

No True Scotsman likes Macs.

I have no idea what you mean. Are you implying that because none of the people I know who prefer Macs conform to your strange description of them, I am somehow committing a certain logical fallacy?

leonAzul

27th August 2008, 03:45 PM

The Mac's reputation for "graphics" all stems from the original advantage it did have i.e. Aldus Pagemaker and then later on QuarkXpress.

The other advantage for desktop publishing has been Applescript, with which one can automate workflows involving several programs.

I wouldn't be too quick to call someone an idiot just because they feel more comfortable with Windows than Mac OS. The ability to get things done is often far more important than any claim to superiority of design.

GreyICE

27th August 2008, 05:15 PM

Would these be the same sort of idiots who measure the gas mileage their car is getting or keep track of their electricity usage?

Ah fanboys. So funny.

For me the question is simple. Does Mac run any of the programs I need it to? No. Game over.

Wudang

28th August 2008, 02:19 AM

Evidences? Well that beacon of journalistic fairness has I would say summed up the debate neatly here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/13/and_ninethly_thinkagain/

wolves_skeptic

28th August 2008, 03:15 AM

Okay, first some background.

I work in IT within schools in the UK. I work in two schools. One secondary and one primary meaning that I have users from 3 years old up to 18 years old and then the staff ranging from 20 to 65 with a whole range of user knowledge. (The kids are, on the whole, better than the staff).

Anyway, I have to use PCs, MACs and Linux machines. To me a computer is a tool. Arguing about weather a PC is better than a MAC is like arguing about if one type of hammer is better than another type of hammer. Surely a sledge hammer is better than a small nail hammer. Well it depends if you are trying to use the sledge to tap in a nail or the nail hammer to break concrete.

PC's, MACs and Linux machines all have pros and cons. And they all... without exception, have problems. The comment from MAC owners that "Mac's don't crash" is an out and out lie. You can, when you know what you are doing, get any operating system to be stable. But when you have multiple users doing multiple tasks then believe me, stablity gets harder and harder.

For anyone who is convinced that MACs do not crash then please answer this simple question: "Why does the MAC have the 'Force Quit" feature?"

Simple isn't it? If they never crashed, they wouldn't need a "Force Quit". MACs should be more reliable because the hardware is so much more limited than PCs. But also MACs tend to be used to certain tasks. For years a college I was at had no problems with MACs but they were only used to run a single piece of video editing software. The PCs on the other hand did video editing, audio editing, desktop publishing, word processing, spread sheets, internet etc etc etc.

Ironically, the fan boy mentality of so many Apple users ensures that problems with MAC OSX and devices like iPods exist. Apple have actually been known to remove threads from their own forums in which people complain about problems with their software and devices and all the time the fan boys run around seeing no evil, hearing no evil and speaking no evil.

Technology doesn't work 100% of the time. Computers (PCs, MACs and Linux boxes) are technology. Stop looking at things in a blinkered way. Yes you can make things "stable" but you can also make them "unstable" pretty easily... and if you still don't believe me... don't forget that "Force Quit" feature.

logical muse

28th August 2008, 03:50 AM

For anyone who is convinced that MACs do not crash then please answer this simple question: "Why does the MAC have the 'Force Quit" feature?"
...
Technology doesn't work 100% of the time. Computers (PCs, MACs and Linux boxes) are technology. Stop looking at things in a blinkered way. Yes you can make things "stable" but you can also make them "unstable" pretty easily...
Hi. I'm a Linux user with almost no experience with Macs. What is the 'force quit' feature? How and when would someone invoke it? What does it do? Sorry about my ignorance.

In terms of stability, unix-based operating systems are pretty reliable. Most of the known universe's web servers run Linux or BSD and have uptimes measured in years.

erlando

28th August 2008, 04:01 AM

In terms of stability, unix-based operating systems are pretty reliable. Most of the known universe's web servers run Linux or BSD and have uptimes measured in years.

Dedicated servers are in an entirely different class than desktop systems. I can point to Windows or OSX servers with uptimes measured in years. I once came across a Novell 3.11 server with an uptime of 10 years. It was still merrily chugging along in a closet.

It's when you start using the machine for "userland" purposes - Browsers, office suites etc - that things go awry. That's why Windows has Task Manager, OSX has "Force quit" and *nix has XKill.

HarryKeogh

28th August 2008, 04:14 AM

Hi. I'm a Linux user with almost no experience with Macs. What is the 'force quit' feature? How and when would someone invoke it? What does it do? Sorry about my ignorance.

I use Macs and PCs running Windows so I liken the "force quit' feature to the "end task" feature in Windows Task Manager.

Bob Blaylock

28th August 2008, 04:20 AM

The comment from MAC owners that "Mac's don't crash" is an out and out lie. You can, when you know what you are doing, get any operating system to be stable. But when you have multiple users doing multiple tasks then believe me, stablity gets harder and harder.

For anyone who is convinced that MACs do not crash then please answer this simple question: "Why does the MAC have the 'Force Quit" feature?"

Simple isn't it? If they never crashed, they wouldn't need a "Force Quit". MACs should be more reliable because the hardware is so much more limited than PCs.

I would never claim that Macintoshes don't ever crash. Nor would anyone else that I know who prefers this platform. I will claim, however, that in general, MacOS is much more stable and reliable than Windows.

The “Force Quit” feature has nothing whatsoever to do with how reliable or crash-resistant the operating system is. On those rare occasions when the operating system itself manages to crash, the “Force Quit” feature won't be accessible, nor would it do any good if it was.

Have you ever seen the display in the attached picture? I'm sure you know what Windows' “Blue Screen of Death” looks like, having seen it many times. That's what happens when Windows crashes. This picture is of a MacOS X “Kernel Panic”, which is almost an exact counterpart to Windows' “Blue Screen of Death”. How often have you seen it?

So what is the “Force Quit” feature for? It's simple and obvious, really. It's for when an Applications goes amok. No matter how stable an operating system is, it can't stop an application from going astray if that application has a bug in it. If an application gets stuck in some state where it cannot proceed, and cannot be politely terminated, then you need a “Force Quit” feature to shut down that application. Windows has a similar feature, though Windows' version of it doesn't work nearly as well as Apple's.

gumboot

28th August 2008, 04:24 AM

The first time I ever used MacOS X was because my Production Manager couldn't work out how to do something on her laptop. I explained that on Windows I achieved this function very easily simply by right clicking, which she couldn't do.

Being unfamiliar with Macs, I really had nothing to offer, except to watch as she attempted various things, and see if I could work it out (I'm pretty computer savvy, and figured I'd be able to get a grip on things faster than her).

Thirty seconds later my first ever MacOS X experience ended with the system crashing. It couldn't even be reset, which was the funniest thing. She had to remove the battery.

wolves_skeptic

28th August 2008, 04:55 AM

I would never claim that Macintoshes don't ever crash. Nor would anyone else that I know who prefers this platform. I will claim, however, that in general, MacOS is much more stable and reliable than Windows.

Look in the mirror. Go on, look in the mirror... now say the words, "FAN BOY". It'll probably hurt to say that, but the sad fact of the matter is, it's true. This is a skeptical forum, why are you not being more skeptical about this?

Why is OSX more stable?

Firstly, the lack of hardware it needs to support. Why can't Mac owners grasp this? There is far far far far far far far far far more hardware available for PCs and as a consequence you get errors with drivers and conflicts. If Macs had the amount of hardware PCs have then you'd find that MACs would crash a whole lot more.

Secondly, what are you doing with you Mac and what software are you using? Look at it this way. I have a laptop with Windows XP SP3 on it that never ever crashes. Never. Not once. I have a desktop with Windows XP SP3 on it that is unreliable and slugish. Now I can tell you that this is nothing to do with hardware. So come on using your "skeptical" brain why do you think that I have one machine stable and one unstable when it's the same OS? This is a crucial answer and until you can grasp the answer you will not understand why comments like, " MacOS is much more stable and reliable than Windows" is so ridiculous. You see the answer is also the reason why you can make Mac OSX unstable. You've even touched on it yourself with your "Force Quit" explaination.

wolves_skeptic

28th August 2008, 04:59 AM

Hi. I'm a Linux user with almost no experience with Macs. What is the 'force quit' feature? How and when would someone invoke it? What does it do? Sorry about my ignorance.

Essentially an application (or the OS) goes wrong and the system freezes. Force Quit will allow you to force the offending application (or OS service) to stop. It's like when you press Ctrl-Alt-Del on a PC running Windows and get the Task Manager and from there you can "End Process".

CFLarsen

28th August 2008, 04:59 AM

I would never claim that Macintoshes don't ever crash. Nor would anyone else that I know who prefers this platform. I will claim, however, that in general, MacOS is much more stable and reliable than Windows.

I like that: "In general". Which means you can make up any arbitrary rule to make your claim true, always.

Have you ever seen the display in the attached picture? I'm sure you know what Windows' “Blue Screen of Death” looks like, having seen it many times. That's what happens when Windows crashes. This picture is of a MacOS X “Kernel Panic”, which is almost an exact counterpart to Windows' “Blue Screen of Death”. How often have you seen it?

I haven't seen it once in XP. Truly. And I have done my best to push my computers to the limit - and beyond.

Now what?

No matter how stable an operating system is, it can't stop an application from going astray if that application has a bug in it. If an application gets stuck in some state where it cannot proceed, and cannot be politely terminated, then you need a “Force Quit” feature to shut down that application. Windows has a similar feature, though Windows' version of it doesn't work nearly as well as Apple's.

Actually, it can. E.g., MVS has many ways to stop your program if it tries to do something that will jeopardize other programs.

There is a world outside the personal computer platform, you know.

moopet

28th August 2008, 04:59 AM

I use Macs and PCs running Windows so I liken the "force quit' feature to the "end task" feature in Windows Task Manager.

Except, to be fair to Apple, "force quit" does work a lot more often than "end task"

Darat

28th August 2008, 05:21 AM

...snip...

Have you ever seen the display in the attached picture? I'm sure you know what Windows' “Blue Screen of Death” looks like, having seen it many times. That's what happens when Windows crashes. This picture is of a MacOS X “Kernel Panic”, which is almost an exact counterpart to Windows' “Blue Screen of Death”. How often have you seen it?

...snip...

When I read your post I really had to think - I haven't seen the BSD for years and years on any of my WindowsXP PCs.

HarryKeogh

28th August 2008, 05:34 AM

I like that: "In general". Which means you can make up any arbitrary rule to make your claim true, always.

Mac users are not these liberal-thinking creatures. Sure, they sip cappuchinos, and are generally obnoxious in all their faux technorati mannerisms - but deep down, they are actually more conservative than Pat Buchanan, when it comes to their computers.

"I like that"...obviously!

When I read your post I really had to think - I haven't seen the BSD for years and years on any of my WindowsXP PCs.

I think I'd have to go back to Windows 98.

CFLarsen

28th August 2008, 05:40 AM

"I like that"...obviously!

You should also appreciate humor, then.

HarryKeogh

28th August 2008, 05:52 AM

You should also appreciate humor, then.

In general.

jsiv

28th August 2008, 06:33 AM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Guru_meditation.gif

richardm

28th August 2008, 07:28 AM

Except, to be fair to Apple, "force quit" does work a lot more often than "end task"

Killing something from the Process tab in Task Manager virtually always works on Windows; killing it from the Applications tab seems to be less reliable. I'm not sure why exactly but I presume it's trying to be more polite (a kill vs kill -9).

GreyICE

28th August 2008, 07:34 AM

Killing something from the Process tab in Task Manager virtually always works on Windows; killing it from the Applications tab seems to be less reliable. I'm not sure why exactly but I presume it's trying to be more polite (a kill vs kill -9). End Task politely asks the program to quit. Works great if the program is running reasonably properly, but screwing up. Note that eventually XP and Vista will decide to End Process on it, but they try other routes first.

End Process tells windows to stop doing anything with that program.

richardm

28th August 2008, 07:36 AM

End Task politely asks the program to quit. Works great if the program is running reasonably properly, but screwing up. Note that eventually XP and Vista will decide to End Process on it, but they try other routes first.

End Process tells windows to stop doing anything with that program.

Thanks; I suspected it must have been something along those lines.

It might be worth noting that Task Manager wasn't always so reliable at killing things. I think that a lot of the objections people have to Windows may be based on experiences with earlier versions.

Hellbound

28th August 2008, 07:40 AM

Killing something from the Process tab in Task Manager virtually always works on Windows; killing it from the Applications tab seems to be less reliable. I'm not sure why exactly but I presume it's trying to be more polite (a kill vs kill -9).

It's been a while since I looked into it, but I believe the difference is this:

The application tab attempts to send the application a kill command, expecting the application to respond and shut itself down. If the application has completely failed, or if it's not properly programmed to respond to this, it won't do anything.

The process tab is OS-controlled. This sends a kill command to the process, which is processed by the OS itself.

The reason most will tell you to use the application shut down first is that it's a slightly more graceful way to close out the app. Also, an application may consist of several processes, and it isn't always easy to identify all of them. There have been a few times when I've shut down the wrong process.

I can't recall the last time I had to shut down a process on my home PC, however (XP SP2). I do get occassional blue screens, though...but that's due to a heat issue (My home PC is not in an optimal area...the exhaust gets trapped behind the system. I really need to get that fixed).

Wudang

28th August 2008, 07:40 AM

Slight derail but Process Explorer is far better than task manager.

WinterMute

28th August 2008, 07:45 AM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Guru_meditation.gif

mmm the good old Amiga days.

jsiv

28th August 2008, 07:46 AM

The issue with killing processes is that the kernel can't get rid of a process until everything that holds a reference to it has released it.

The most common reason why a process refuses to die completely is because a poorly written driver is misbehaving and is refusing to release its references to it.

Wudang

28th August 2008, 07:59 AM

Hellbound

28th August 2008, 08:09 AM

Slight derail but Process Explorer is far better than task manager.

The issue with killing processes is that the kernel can't get rid of a process until everything that holds a reference to it has released it.

The most common reason why a process refuses to die completely is because a poorly written driver is misbehaving and is refusing to release its references to it.

Yep :) Which is why process explorer is cool. It can show you all dependant processes so you can kill freaking everything :)

Wudang

28th August 2008, 08:12 AM

Kill 'em all! Let the kernel sort 'em out.

Darat

28th August 2008, 08:22 AM

Quite appropriate coming from a Vorlon!

jsiv

28th August 2008, 08:26 AM

As Clause says though, OSes like MVS have been handling that stuff for decades. That's why it has 2 levels of Resource Termination Manager, why the ECB chain is readily accessible etc etc. The only one that can be a problem as I recall is a cross-system mount request for a device requesting exclusive access.

I don't really have much experience with those systems, but I can guess that in addition to any design differences, they also exist in a much more controlled and tested environment.

Windows is routinely exposed to very cheap and nasty hardware (and related software drivers) that ends up having consequences for the whole system. Windows is limited in what it can do to the drivers without potentially risking even worse consequences.

Yep :) Which is why process explorer is cool. It can show you all dependant processes so you can kill freaking everything :)

But when the dependencies are in kernel components (ie drivers) there isn't much you can do. Windows can reload the driver (especially now that XP and Vista have user space drivers), but then you run into the same kind of problem with everything that depends on said driver. The majority of the process has already been removed, so it might be better to just leave the remains alone.

Wudang

28th August 2008, 08:43 AM

I don't really have much experience with those systems, but I can guess that in addition to any design differences, they also exist in a much more controlled and tested environment.

Yep, dunno if still the case but for a very long time MVS did not have to earn money, it just had to be solid.
It's not a fair comparison but it's not a fair thread so .....

Wudang

28th August 2008, 08:56 AM

Quite appropriate coming from a Vorlon!

The truth points to itself.

Unless void.

Almo

28th August 2008, 09:15 AM

Almo

28th August 2008, 09:31 AM

No it doesn't (at least not for XP) it is very rare that you would have to reinstall anything but the Windows components.

Reinstalling, not repairing an existing installing. It is common, in my expierience that repairing does not work.

Almo

28th August 2008, 09:33 AM

"More expensive" does not necessarily equal "better".

But very often it does. I've yet to see a pair of shoes at < $50 remotely as good as any New Balance offering for > $100.

jsiv

28th August 2008, 09:36 AM

When a process takes a long time to kill, it might be producing the crash report. This is done by dumprep. So, if you try to kill something, and dumprep shows up in the processes window, kill it, and bingo! You're done waiting. Sending more kills to the app can spawn multiple dumpreps.

If that is something you (or anyone else) find yourself doing often, it would probably be better to just disable error/problem reporting so it never runs in the first place.

It can be found in System Properties, Advanced, Error Reporting under XP, and Problem Reports and Solutions, Advanced in Vista.

Darat

28th August 2008, 09:39 AM

Reinstalling, not repairing an existing installing. It is common, in my expierience that repairing does not work.

I was meaning a reinstall - if you reinstall on top of a current WindowsXP setup it is very rare that anything significant will have to be reinstalled.

Bob Blaylock

28th August 2008, 02:06 PM

Look in the mirror. Go on, look in the mirror... now say the words, "FAN BOY". It'll probably hurt to say that, but the sad fact of the matter is, it's true. This is a skeptical forum, why are you not being more skeptical about this?

And why are you resorting to such a horrendously ignorant ad-hominem attack against me? Are you really that devoid of any useful points to support your own position? Apparently so…

Why is OSX more stable?

Firstly, the lack of hardware it needs to support. Why can't Mac owners grasp this? There is far far far far far far far far far more hardware available for PCs and as a consequence you get errors with drivers and conflicts. If Macs had the amount of hardware PCs have then you'd find that MACs would crash a whole lot more.

Yes, that is one of the primary advantages that the Macintosh platform, as a whole, has over the Windows platform. You have the same company producing both the operating system and the hardware with which that operating system has to work. I would certainly not claim that this is the only thing that helps make MacOS X also much more stable than Windows, but it is certainly a significant factor.

You seem to be claiming that this is somehow a disadvantage, or at the very least, that it is somehow an “unfair” advantage that somehow invalidates any claimed increase in stability that can be attributed to it. Your excuses rather remind me of the classic story of Harrison Bergeron (http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html).

wolves_skeptic

28th August 2008, 02:12 PM

And why are you resorting to such a horrendously ignorant ad-hominem attack against me?

Ad-Hominem... yes.

True... yes.

You're blinkered.

The proof of that is that you haven't answered my crucial question. Why do I have a very stable laptop but a very unstable desktop? It's not an hardware issue and it's exactly the same thing which also can make Macs unstable.

I would certainly not claim that this is the only thing that helps make MacOS X also much more stable than Windows, but it is certainly a significant factor.

And yet, with such strict guidelines it still goes wrong.

You seem to be claiming that this is somehow a disadvantage, or at the very least, that it is somehow an “unfair” advantage

Not at all. I raise it because it means that Macs should work a lot better than they do. Your argument is incredibly blinkered to the truth of what's going on.

So please... why do I have a very stable laptop and a very unstable desktop? And it's nothing to do with hardware.

GreyICE

28th August 2008, 03:05 PM

Why will no Mac fanboy address the pertinent fact that your computers don't work for me?

I want to build my own computer. I want to have complete control over the components, and I want it to be modular. Macs do not do that.

I want to play the latest games, when I want, where I want, how I want, and I do not want to waste time getting temperamental emulators to work.

I want to be able to run programs that I need to do my job, such as AutoCAD.

I have my desktop successfully running Windows Vista. To date, I have had exactly zero crashes. Zero. It runs the games I want it to. It runs the software I want it to. It runs everything I want it to.

And you know what? I don't CARE if you use Mac. I just wish people would stop making dumb claims like Mac OSX is obviously superior. It's vastly inferior for what I need it to do, and frankly, if you don't need your computer to do that I don't care. For me, it's a non-functional system.

logical muse

28th August 2008, 09:54 PM

For anyone who is convinced that MACs do not crash then please answer this simple question: "Why does the MAC have the 'Force Quit" feature?"

Simple isn't it? If they never crashed, they wouldn't need a "Force Quit".

Hi. I'm a Linux user with almost no experience with Macs. What is the 'force quit' feature? How and when would someone invoke it? What does it do? Sorry about my ignorance.

The “Force Quit” feature has nothing whatsoever to do with how reliable or crash-resistant the operating system is. On those rare occasions when the operating system itself manages to crash, the “Force Quit” feature won't be accessible, nor would it do any good if it was.

So what is the “Force Quit” feature for? It's simple and obvious, really. It's for when an Applications goes amok. No matter how stable an operating system is, it can't stop an application from going astray if that application has a bug in it. If an application gets stuck in some state where it cannot proceed, and cannot be politely terminated, then you need a “Force Quit” feature to shut down that application. Windows has a similar feature, though Windows' version of it doesn't work nearly as well as Apple's.

Essentially an application (or the OS) goes wrong and the system freezes. Force Quit will allow you to force the offending application (or OS service) to stop. It's like when you press Ctrl-Alt-Del on a PC running Windows and get the Task Manager and from there you can "End Process".

OK, so the 'Force Quit' feature has nothing to do with the operating system crashing then. It's for terminating a misbehaving application. If the operating system crashed, you wouldn't be able to access the 'Force Quit' function, indeed, there would be no application to terminate.

logical muse

28th August 2008, 10:08 PM

Why is OSX more stable?

Firstly, the lack of hardware it needs to support. Why can't Mac owners grasp this? There is far far far far far far far far far more hardware available for PCs and as a consequence you get errors with drivers and conflicts. If Macs had the amount of hardware PCs have then you'd find that MACs would crash a whole lot more.

Yes, that is one of the primary advantages that the Macintosh platform, as a whole, has over the Windows platform. You have the same company producing both the operating system and the hardware with which that operating system has to work. I would certainly not claim that this is the only thing that helps make MacOS X also much more stable than Windows, but it is certainly a significant factor.

OK, I'm not sure about this argument. Linux has to run on the same variety of disparate hardware components that Windows does, and it does and is quite stable. It's a rare rare (but not completely unheard of) thing to hear about Linux crashing.

CFLarsen

28th August 2008, 11:16 PM

Damien Evans

29th August 2008, 12:14 AM

But very often it does. I've yet to see a pair of shoes at < $50 remotely as good as any New Balance offering for > $100.

Strangely, the only pair of shoes I ever had any problems with were a $150 pair of New Balances.

Mark Felt

29th August 2008, 01:17 AM

OK, I'm not sure about this argument. Linux has to run on the same variety of disparate hardware components that Windows does, and it does and is quite stable. It's a rare rare (but not completely unheard of) thing to hear about Linux crashing.

Ha! I managed to crash Linux within half an hour of starting it up in virtual machine form the first time I tried to use it!

But I would classify that as user idiocy, rather than a problem on the part of the OS.

HarryKeogh

29th August 2008, 01:17 AM

Strangely, the only pair of shoes I ever had any problems with were a $150 pair of New Balances.

I used to own a pair of galoshes that had to be rebooted constantly.

logical muse

29th August 2008, 02:27 AM

Ha! I managed to crash Linux within half an hour of starting it up in virtual machine form the first time I tried to use it!

But I would classify that as user idiocy, rather than a problem on the part of the OS.
Really? I wouldn't call it idiocy. You have to be quite determined to crash Linux!

wolves_skeptic

29th August 2008, 03:52 AM

OK, I'm not sure about this argument. Linux has to run on the same variety of disparate hardware components that Windows does, and it does and is quite stable. It's a rare rare (but not completely unheard of) thing to hear about Linux crashing.

Actually hardware support is still lower than that of Windows. It is getting much better and the power of Linux is that it is based on Unix and because it's open source the community find and repair problems much quicker than Microsoft or Apple.

Ironically OSX is based on Unix but a crap version of it. One thing not mentioned in relation to Apple Macs so far is security. Did you know that with two simple key presses during boot up any Apple Mac can be booted into the UNIX shell as a super user giving you full access to everything on the drive and with full permissions? It even tells you the two Unix commands to type in to mount the drive and with a very simple command you can then wipe the hard drive. (I actually have a friend who loves doing this to any Apple Macs he finds in PC World - it takes about ten minutes and the drive is wiped clean). However the main issue here is security as anyone can get very quick access to all your files. The only way to protect your data against this is using the "File Vault". However, if you then use your MAC for video editing or photo manipulation and use massive files then File Vault has it's own problems in that it makes it too slow. You then need another user for big files and one user for protected data.

Of course, you're not supposed to mention that because the fan boys get upset. Expect a few comments like, "I don't have UNIX gurus wondering around my house" because Dawkins forbid they should have to consider that there is any problem with their beloved Macs.

In fact, are Mac users members of a new religion? Maybe they wonder around chanting "It does not crash! It does not crash!" while flogging themselves with a cat-o-nine-tails. :)

wolves_skeptic

29th August 2008, 03:55 AM

OK, so the 'Force Quit' feature has nothing to do with the operating system crashing then.

Not really. The OS has many services running itself and sometimes they do go wrong and you need Force Quit to get at them.

The rule of thumb is simply that is depends on what you use your computer for. It's a tool. Sometimes it's better to use Windows, sometimes OSX, sometimes Linux and sometimes UNIX. You decide what you are using the hammer for before selecting the hammer. You need to decide what you are using the computer for before selecting the Operating System.

So the message to everyone is... Don't be a fan boy. Make the computer work for you, not you work for the computer.

jsiv

29th August 2008, 04:07 AM

Really? I wouldn't call it idiocy. You have to be quite determined to crash Linux!

Some years back my Hauppauge TV card would make Linux kernel panic every time you tried to change the channel. As determined as I was to get the channel changed, I gave up after a while.

open source the community find and repair problems much quicker than Microsoft or Apple.

Tell that to the Firefox bugs that have been around for YEARS!!

Ironically OSX is based on Unix but a crap version of it. One thing not mentioned in relation to Apple Macs so far is security. Did you know that with two simple key presses during boot up and Apple Mac can be booted into the UNIX shell as a super user giving you full access to everything on the drive and with full permissions?
Virtually all of the popular Linux and Unix-variants will let you do that too. Often it's even an option on the boot menu. The rationale is that since you have physical access to the machine the security is already compromised anyway.

wolves_skeptic

29th August 2008, 04:17 AM

Tell that to the Firefox bugs that have been around for YEARS!!

Good point. I did think the issue here is that no ones too sure exactly how to solve the problem.

Virtually all of the popular Linux and Unix-variants will let you do that too. Often it's even an option on the boot menu. The rationale is that since you have physical access to the machine the security is already compromised anyway.

I didn't know that about Linux. Thanks for the heads up. Shocking attitude if that is their attitude. Physical access shouldn't mean ignoring security at that level.

GreyICE

29th August 2008, 04:48 AM

Let me guess: You also don't want to pay more, just because it's a pretty box.

Right? ;)

Given what I paid for my computer, it isn't more. I have an e6850, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 9800 GTX. It's not cheaper than an Apple, but it kills anything they have in terms of power.

Certainly anything prebuilt at those specs would be so bleeding edge it would be absurdly expensive.

coalesce

29th August 2008, 06:09 AM

I used to own a pair of galoshes that had to be rebooted constantly.

You heel!

Michael

CFLarsen

29th August 2008, 06:31 AM

Given what I paid for my computer, it isn't more. I have an e6850, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 9800 GTX. It's not cheaper than an Apple, but it kills anything they have in terms of power.

But then, it is cheaper.

Almo

29th August 2008, 08:20 AM

Strangely, the only pair of shoes I ever had any problems with were a $150 pair of New Balances.

I need B-width. Hard to get in other brands.

Almo

29th August 2008, 08:23 AM

I was meaning a reinstall - if you reinstall on top of a current WindowsXP setup it is very rare that anything significant will have to be reinstalled.

I've always had to reinstall my apps when attempting that. Well, if this is true, it's a good thing.

wolves_skeptic

29th August 2008, 08:53 AM

But then, it is cheaper.

But like for like it isn't cheaper. A basic Mac in the UK costs £939.00. For that money you could buy an off the shelf PC of amazing spec. If you built from components (something else you can't do with Macs) then £900+ would get you a phenominal machine.

I think this is quite funny because if the Mac fan boys stopped being such fan boys and actually got Macs to lower their prices (they are overpriced) and got them to put things right which went wrong (as opposed to deleting non-conforming posts on their forums) then maybe Apple would try harder and create better machines at a lower price. At the moment they can hurl out any crap, stick a Coldplay song over it and fan boy after fan boy drools over it ignores any problems.

I mean, iPhone is locked to a single network. (yes it can be unlocked but you shouldn't have to, should you... you should have a choice... any handset, any network) I can't believe people fall for it again and again.

Are Mac fan boys visiting homeopaths as well?

CFLarsen

29th August 2008, 12:02 PM

But like for like it isn't cheaper. A basic Mac in the UK costs £939.00. For that money you could buy an off the shelf PC of amazing spec. If you built from components (something else you can't do with Macs) then £900+ would get you a phenominal machine.

Ehhh....that's what I meant: PCs are, like for like, cheaper.

wolves_skeptic

29th August 2008, 01:25 PM

Ehhh....that's what I meant: PCs are, like for like, cheaper.

Me bad... sorry.:(

erlando

29th August 2008, 03:23 PM

Ironically OSX is based on Unix but a crap version of it. One thing not mentioned in relation to Apple Macs so far is security. Did you know that with two simple key presses during boot up any Apple Mac can be booted into the UNIX shell as a super user giving you full access to everything on the drive and with full permissions? It even tells you the two Unix commands to type in to mount the drive and with a very simple command you can then wipe the hard drive.

Ever heard of Linux Single User Mode (http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Single-user_mode)?

This logs you on as root by default, and is very handy if you have forgotten your root password. Use passwd to reset your password in this situation

Btw this is not unique for neither OSX nor Linux. This is pretty standard Unix.

GreyICE

29th August 2008, 03:48 PM

moopet

29th August 2008, 04:43 PM

To be fair, all you do to crack a windows computer is take the hard drive out and make it a slave drive on another computer, and you have every file on the disk.

Smart people encrypt their information.

You can password protect a hard-drive, which is supported by most PC laptops
and a fair few modern PCs.

RayG

31st August 2008, 07:12 AM

If you are prepared to spend X amount of money on a computer I honestly don't know why you would spend the money on a Mac other than they are prettier. Pound for pound as far as I can see you would be better off buying a PC custom built to your specific requirements.

Earlier this year I helped a co-worker purchase a new computer system. The choices came down to a custom-made PC or an off the shelf Mac. Since the PC was going to have nearly 3 times the hard drive space* and cost hundreds less**, he elected to go with the PC and purchased a digital camera with the savings.

RayG

* two 500Giggers vs one 360GB drive
** $1452 vs $1899

CFLarsen

31st August 2008, 08:05 AM

Me bad... sorry.:(

No worries.

GreyICE

31st August 2008, 09:24 AM

You can password protect a hard-drive, which is supported by most PC laptops
and a fair few modern PCs.
Smart people encrypt their information.

Out of curiosity, what do you suppose that password represents?

moopet

31st August 2008, 10:14 AM

Out of curiosity, what do you suppose that password represents?

Eh? I don't understand the question.

My password, for example, which is 12345, represents the combination an idiot would have on his luggage. Is that what you mean?

GreyICE

31st August 2008, 10:24 AM

Eh? I don't understand the question.

My password, for example, which is 12345, represents the combination an idiot would have on his luggage. Is that what you mean?

Let me rephrase this: How do you think the password protects the hard drive?

Gate2501

31st August 2008, 11:25 AM

Let me rephrase this: How do you think the password protects the hard drive?

I'm pretty sure that it is built into the firmware. I have heard that it is VERY difficult to defeat outside of removing the platters and inserting them into a different hard drive or reader, and doing that would be WAY beyond my abilities.

I think that you have to manually put the drive into password protected mode and it locks it out until the correct pass is repeated, its not like a router password where you can reset it by moving a jumper or pushing a little button.

moopet

31st August 2008, 11:28 AM

Let me rephrase this: How do you think the password protects the hard drive?

The password is encrypted and stored in flash memory on the controller. It is also duplicated on sectors of the drive which are not directy accessible through software. Unless the platter password and the firmware password and the password the user provides tally, the drive reports itself as being 0-size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment#HDD_Passwords_and_S ecurity

TheJim

31st August 2008, 12:49 PM

The OP despite being troll bait is just wrong. I wanted a computer that out of the box I could use to record and play back tv shows and later add a HDTV capture card to record and playback hdtv and well the only OS/hardware combination that offered this was Windows (maybe there was a linux box somewhere but not from any of the major or the minor majors and plus I dont want to have to rely other users to figure out issues). So in my case OX10 would have been the worse solution possible.

There is also the issue of multiple supply availability that goes against Apple. Yes it is great that Apple can have a greater control on the parts it has to support but at the same time it keeps me a hostage to the company. With windows I have a choice of about 4 to 8 huge system makers and hundreds if not thousands of smaller shops to choose from. With this I get greater flexibility in system configs along with better overall pricing. If I don't like the way HP is treating me this year, I can get a dell next year and most if not all of my software and data will move over with out much trouble and I will now exactly how to use it. But, also I can stick with the hardware I have if I end up with a problem with windows and install another OS (though this is very unlikely for myself as I don't want to ever deal with lenix) and yes I know about bootcamp but I am still locked into a single hardware supplier.

The other big problem with Apple as a company though is it Apple or is it Jobs. What I mean with this, Apple seems to be doing great right now but what happens when Jobs steps down or dies? From nearly all the reports I have seen about the company it is the Jobs show and he has his hand in everything and there is no one really being groomed as a successor. Can Apple keep the high standards once he is gone or will it go back to the verge of bankruptcy?

Another reason I would probably not even bother trying an Apple is because I have not been impressed by the Apples software I have used. By far the two biggest problems I have had with my computer have been Itunes and Quicktime. Itunes is slow and sluggish when it is working but alot of the time it hangs or crashes that is if it starts at all. Quicktime is the same way but with the added benefit of trying to take over my computer even after telling it I only want it to work with quicktime files. I would imagine that these programs work better on a mac but I am not willing to take that chance when down time costs me time and money.

Last thing, apple has this rep for being great at graphics and video but from what I understand (and this could be competently wrong) is that most of the big software players are moving their new versions to vista 64 as Apples 64 bit environment is more of add on then native support. Would this not seem the end of macs in this environment if a graphics house has to use what i would image to be much slower versions?

moopet

31st August 2008, 02:07 PM

Last thing, apple has this rep for being great at graphics and video but from what I understand (and this could be competently wrong) is that most of the big software players are moving their new versions to vista 64 as Apples 64 bit environment is more of add on then native support. Would this not seem the end of macs in this environment if a graphics house has to use what i would image to be much slower versions?

Just a clear-up point: 64-bit doesn't mean faster. If anything, 64-bit applications are slower, because they have to move twice as much data around from one chunk of RAM to a cache somewhere to another chunk of RAM. 64-bit's benefit is that it can address significantly more memory without having to play any funny tricks, so you can keep a much bigger slice of video for editing in memory or more layers or whatever. Having raw 1GB images to throw around in your copy of Photoshop is much nicer than having to page bits of them in and out because your old 32-bit system can only address about 3GB in total is going to be more and more of an issue.

jsiv

31st August 2008, 02:55 PM

Sadly, 64-bit Windows and multimedia isn't the greatest combination, as most codecs are only available in 32-bit versions.

GreyICE

1st September 2008, 01:52 AM

Just a clear-up point: 64-bit doesn't mean faster. If anything, 64-bit applications are slower, because they have to move twice as much data around from one chunk of RAM to a cache somewhere to another chunk of RAM. 64-bit's benefit is that it can address significantly more memory without having to play any funny tricks, so you can keep a much bigger slice of video for editing in memory or more layers or whatever. Having raw 1GB images to throw around in your copy of Photoshop is much nicer than having to page bits of them in and out because your old 32-bit system can only address about 3GB in total is going to be more and more of an issue.

This is just manifestly not the case. The only time that's true is when you have 32 bit applications operating in legacy mode (which brings the 64 bit slower than the 32 bit). Otherwise, 64 bit is much, MUCH faster than 32 bit. The difference is utterly phenomenal.

Take this benchmarking. Same system, same hardware. Difference? 32 bit windows vs. 64 bit windows.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1665&page=8

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1665&page=6

Take a look at these stats. Processor time HALVED. Framerate was nearly 50% higher.

The key is that the 64 bit can handle 64 bits of data per clock cycle. The 32 bit can only handle 32. That means for the same clock cycles (gHz) the data movement rate is doubled if each cycle uses the full 64 bits. That's why you see a nearly linear halving with the math-intensive applications (such as the complicated decryption processes) whereas streams with smaller packets of data (simple decryption processes, graphical rendering) the difference shrinks. The 32 bit actually overtakes the 64 bit when the packets drop below the 32 bit max because of the overhead in 64 bit memory addresses. However those applications are so simplistic that they are not really important in any sense.

The 64 bit architecture is a huge reason that the clock cycles have stopped climbing so dramatically and we are only now crawling back to 3 GHz. With 64, you'd rather do a lot of things at the same time rather than a few things quickly because your data channel is so much bigger.

32 bit is a lot worse in many ways.

The only advantage it has is everyone is still programming for it, so sending 32 bit packets through 64 bit architecture gets the larger memory overhead with no actual advantage in processor time.

moopet

1st September 2008, 03:59 AM

This is just manifestly not the case.

I stand corrected.

JonnyFive

2nd September 2008, 10:07 AM

GreyICE, that is pretty cool. Any comparisons with Vista-64? I've been thinking about moving over to the 64-bit version of the software and was curious about performance differences.

Tsukasa Buddha

4th September 2008, 05:33 PM

After just playing with a Mac in our computer center, I have to say that I like the foreign language features of OSX much better than those of Windows.

I still think they need to ditch their slow update cycle so that their products don't end up as hideously overpriced as they are now.

Well, they should be updating within the next month or two, probably after next weeks iPod event, so I'll be able to judge better then.

GreyICE

4th September 2008, 07:08 PM

GreyICE, that is pretty cool. Any comparisons with Vista-64? I've been thinking about moving over to the 64-bit version of the software and was curious about performance differences.

The results are pretty across the board improvement.

http://64-bit-computers.com/windows-vista-32-bit-vs-64-bit-benchmark.html

This was a 10% gain in power on a Sempron 2800+ with 512 meg RAM, which hopefully you're not installing Vista on (DON'T).

This one is reasonably comprehensive (multiple pages)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2280812,00.asp

You can see some definite loss in movies (low processor usage application) and memory management (the longer pointers I was talking about) but overall big gains. Their rendering test was a little garbage, as they self-admittedly used fast renders to save time, which is exactly where you ax 64 bit.

What you're seeing in the application tests (as opposed to the decryption tests, which are straight mathematical number crunches, and why I linked to them) is that many programs are optimized to 32 bit, so running them through a 64 bit system can be clunky. Hence why some programs take 2-3 times longer and some perform 20% better, doing similar things.

Their FPS on FPS tests was similarly retarded - no AI, no physics, proving that graphics cards = graphics cards, rather redundant. However, switch to an RTS with slightly more AI components:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2280816,00.asp

Overall conclusion - the theory is there, the software is NOT. So currently, performance benchmarks are a rather mixed bag, as the software switches entire architectures.

Upgrading from 32 to 64 is not something you should run into, as it's probably 2-3 years before the 64 bit market matures, but at the same time, your operating system is definitely last gen, and there's no reason to run it on current gen hardware.

Damien Evans

4th September 2008, 07:50 PM

JonnyFive

5th September 2008, 07:10 AM

Upgrading from 32 to 64 is not something you should run into, as it's probably 2-3 years before the 64 bit market matures, but at the same time, your operating system is definitely last gen, and there's no reason to run it on current gen hardware.

As a further question, do you know anything about the stability and driver support under Windows XP-64 versus Vista-64 as well as the general state of the stability of drivers and apps? (basically extending Damien's question)

billydkid

5th September 2008, 07:38 AM

I love my mac.

GreyICE

5th September 2008, 07:55 AM

Further to JohnnyFives question, would all my 32 bit games etc work on 64 bit?
Qualified yes. Any recent game will work. Games from the DOS/95/98 era are a little trickier, though I successfully have Alpha Centuari working, I never have gotten my copy of System Shock 2 to run. However that's true under 32 bit XP too, so YMMV. If it's something made after 2000 was released, I'm sure it will run (I've never had a problem with anything after that date).

As a further question, do you know anything about the stability and driver support under Windows XP-64 versus Vista-64 as well as the general state of the stability of drivers and apps? (basically extending Damien's question)
XP-64 is supposed to have lousy driver support. Vista 64 has been pretty good to me, I haven't had a driver issue in nearly a year now. And that one was totally NVidia's fault (they dropped the ball with UAC. They wanted to overwrite a .dll, and they didn't use the necessary permissions, meaning Vista stopped them from messing around in the dll folder).

JonnyFive

5th September 2008, 08:33 AM

XP-64 is supposed to have lousy driver support. Vista 64 has been pretty good to me, I haven't had a driver issue in nearly a year now. And that one was totally NVidia's fault (they dropped the ball with UAC. They wanted to overwrite a .dll, and they didn't use the necessary permissions, meaning Vista stopped them from messing around in the dll folder).

That's what I'd heard as well (about XP-64, I mean), but it seems to have been improved with Vista-64. Glad to hear you're having a good experience, I'm seriously considering it whenever I make the next major hardware upgrade.

wolves_skeptic

7th September 2008, 01:34 AM

I love my mac.

Really? I love my wife and kids. I don't love my computer, or my car, or my hammer.

You love tools? Really?

jsiv

7th September 2008, 05:52 AM

Really? I love my wife and kids. I don't love my computer, or my car, or my hammer.

You love tools? Really?

I bet you're a PEECEE user.

ladyattis

7th September 2008, 07:49 PM

moopet

8th September 2008, 05:00 AM

Grizzly Bear

8th September 2008, 07:41 AM

OSX does what it does: runs a computer. And it does it well. I'm not a Mac fan, nor do I wish to own a Mac, but the OS is still something I think everyone should consider a gold standard if we're talking the UI aspect of it.

I'm stuck with windows regardless of what I do because all of my design programs are windows-only. I recently got into the 64-bit material though and I gotta say it is much much faster than any previous computer I've gotten, the only qualm I have with it still is the lack of security programs that can work in a 64-bit environment, which only reinforces where Mac OSX benefits from its smaller user base.

Dan O.

8th September 2008, 10:47 AM

I'm stuck with windows regardless of what I do because all of my design programs are windows-only. I recently got into the 64-bit material though and I gotta say it is much much faster than any previous computer I've gotten, the only qualm I have with it still is the lack of security programs that can work in a 64-bit environment, which only reinforces where Mac OSX benefits from its smaller user base.

What you can do is help more PC users switch or at least consider alternate platforms like Mac OS X. As the Mac user base expands, more companies will develop their applications to be cross platform so you won't be forced to use the platform that they picked.

It really doesn't cost that much more to develop applications for multiple systems if they are well designed to begin with. And the multi-platform testing helps improve the product for all platforms.

The same design constraints that allow applications to be easily ported to multiple platforms also make it easier to keep the application compatible with OS upgrades. So it would actually benefit PC users to have more Mac users.

ThatSoundAgain

8th September 2008, 05:48 PM

Qualified yes. Any recent game will work. Games from the DOS/95/98 era are a little trickier, though I successfully have Alpha Centuari working, I never have gotten my copy of System Shock 2 to run. However that's true under 32 bit XP too, so YMMV. If it's something made after 2000 was released, I'm sure it will run (I've never had a problem with anything after that date).

I've run SS2 under XP. I don't remember exactly how, but I'm almost certain it was with the help of info from this fan site (http://www.sshock2.com/). They even have a high-definition texture and model pack linked from there - recommended.

Molinaro

10th September 2008, 03:59 PM

Molinaro

10th September 2008, 04:07 PM

Molinaro

10th September 2008, 04:10 PM

uruk

10th September 2008, 04:12 PM

This is all rather amazing to me. The Mac OS is derived from UNIX (Jobs NeXT Cube, the project he worked on while Coca Cola ran Apple), which is the quintessential nerd's operating system. Windows was invented (some say) to give a more human face to the computer, exactly the opposite from what UNIX was supposed to do. The more things differ the more they are the same.

All modern Personal Computer OSes are derived from UNIX in some fashion.

MSDOS was basically a quick and dirty port of UNIX.

The GUI OS was stolen from Xerox PARCs prototype PC. Ol' Steve Jobs raised the jolly rodger and Micro-squishy, Billy Boy snuck it out from under Jobs' nose.

The truth is both systems are pretty good at what they do. Choosing between Mac or PC is like choosing between regular or menthol cigarettes. Either choice is going to significantly shorten your life span but one looks and smells kinda pretty. In my years of monkeying around with computers I've seen just about every OS around crash, including MacOS. All it takes is the right conditions.

As somebody mentioned before, windows is much more dodgy because of the all the third party hardware and software that the PC has to integrate with. It is hard for both Microsoft and all the third parties to keep everything copasetic. Apple, on the other hand, is a one stop shop. Less issues with compatability.

The benefit of PC is the vast varieties of hardware and applications that are available for the PC. Most people who prefer to use a Mac still have to use a PC because the software they need to use is only written for the PC.

Why is this? Because the PC still dominates the Personal Computer and Workstation market.
80% to 90% of the worlds personal computers are still PC. Software and hardware manufacturers arent going to spend money and resources desinging and building hardware and software for only 10 or 20 percent of the market. The money is in the PC.
Linux suffers from this same situation.

This concept, by the way, is the same for viruses. Almost all viruses and maleware is written for Windows. One exception is router viruses.

Back in the day, viruses were mainly written for vandalizim and fun. Today, there is big money in maleware, viruses and spyware. They are used to gather personal and financial information, generate spam, denial of service and hold corporate databases for ransom.

The hackers are going spend all thier blood, sweat and tears writting maleware for the PC rather than the Mac because there are more PCs than Macs. That is why there are so very few viruses written for the Mac. Apple benefits from PC's dominance in that respect.

It is easier to maintain a stable OS if you don't have to deal with fending off viruses or getting infected with viruses. Nothing will mess up the stability of your OS faster than a poorly written virus.

Now think about it, if Mac popularity increases and more people start using Macs. That will catch the attention of Maleware writers and you'll start to see an increase in virus and hacker attacks for the Mac.

So, What computer should you get? Get a PC. PCs are macho, Macs are gay. ;P

uruk

10th September 2008, 04:17 PM

I love my mac.

What kinda "love" are we talking about here?

Kopji

10th September 2008, 11:58 PM

32 bit programs can run slower on a 64 bit OS or hardware. This is because the 64 bit registers need to be padded with fresh air, and that takes time.

DOS command are a lot more similar to VMS than UNIX.

There is compelling evidence that our company creates slightly less profit per employee now, than in pre-microcomputer days. This implies that a slide rule might win out in the OS wars.

RPN is a far superior kind of calculator.

jsiv

11th September 2008, 03:50 AM

Not if it's NTFS instead FAT formated.
Unless it's encrypted, NTFS offers no security. The file permissions might prevent you from reading the data at first, but simply running takeown.exe recursively on the whole drive will solve that.

All modern Personal Computer OSes are derived from UNIX in some fashion.

MSDOS was basically a quick and dirty port of UNIX.

The GUI OS was stolen from Xerox PARCs prototype PC. Ol' Steve Jobs raised the jolly rodger and Micro-squishy, Billy Boy snuck it out from under Jobs' nose.
That's not quite true. Derived implies that they were actually based on UNIX source code, which is false. Linux may be similar to UNIX, but it is not derived from it. Instead, it is a clone implemented from scratch.

MS-DOS had no connection to UNIX, but rather started out as a clone of CP/M (a very simplistic OS with little in common with UNIX). As for Windows, they may have been inspired by Xerox when they designed the visual elements for Windows 1.0, but to say that the OS was stolen from Xerox is stretching it rather far.

In any case, DOS was abandoned long ago and its assembly code plays no part in the modern Windows (NT) which is inspired by VMS (a result of Microsoft hiring DEC programmers) with APIs from the original Windows line and OS/2 thrown in.

As somebody mentioned before, windows is much more dodgy because of the all the third party hardware and software that the PC has to integrate with. It is hard for both Microsoft and all the third parties to keep everything copasetic. Apple, on the other hand, is a one stop shop. Less issues with compatability.
Some might say that the recent crashes caused by the new version of iTunes shows that Apple is far from being better than Microsoft when faced with the same circumstances.

moopet

11th September 2008, 04:53 AM

Not if it's NTFS instead FAT formated.

That should have absolutely no bearing.
Qualifier: yes, you can use drive encryption or bitlocker to encrypt your ntfs disk, provided you are running XP Pro, vista business or ultimate or possibly one of the 200x servers (dunno) but it simply being NTFS rather than FAT doesn't offer any more or less protection.

Dan O.

11th September 2008, 09:46 AM

Now think about it, if Mac popularity increases and more people start using Macs. That will catch the attention of Maleware writers and you'll start to see an increase in virus and hacker attacks for the Mac.

In the old days (Before OS X), Macs were plagued by viruses just like PCs. But the Macs had an advantage. Since there were fewer avenues for viruses to attack Macs (the common buffer overrun was not one of them), Apple was able to close off the attack vectors rendering most virus ineffective. Eventually, the only type of virus still active on the Classic Mac OS were attacking scripting vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. The most popular anti-virus software, Disinfectant, stopped making updates long before OS X came out. Apple took the lessons learned from Classic and OS X was mostly secure out of the box. There have been a few holes discovered along the way but they are quickly closed.

There are all the technical reasons why it is harder to write a virus for the Mac. But my personal belief is that the programmers that use Macs simply don't want to.

I'm a programmer and I love my mac. Why would I want to hurt it?

uruk

11th September 2008, 10:51 AM

That's not quite true. Derived implies that they were actually based on UNIX source code, which is false. Linux may be similar to UNIX, but it is not derived from it. Instead, it is a clone implemented from scratch. You are right. "Derived" is the wrong word. Inspired is more accurate

MS-DOS had no connection to UNIX, but rather started out as a clone of CP/M (a very simplistic OS with little in common with UNIX). As for Windows, they may have been inspired by Xerox when they designed the visual elements for Windows 1.0, but to say that the OS was stolen from Xerox is stretching it rather far. My bad. You're right again. MSDOS was based off CP/M

MS Windows was not based on Xerox's Alto OS. Apple had arrainged to see the Xerox Alto and and used the information they could get from theXerox engineers to help develop the GUI for the Lisa and Macintosh. Microsoft then used the Apple GUI as a guide for Windows 1.0

uruk

11th September 2008, 11:14 AM

In the old days (Before OS X), Macs were plagued by viruses just like PCs. But the Macs had an advantage. Since there were fewer avenues for viruses to attack Macs (the common buffer overrun was not one of them), Apple was able to close off the attack vectors rendering most virus ineffective. Eventually, the only type of virus still active on the Classic Mac OS were attacking scripting vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. The most popular anti-virus software, Disinfectant, stopped making updates long before OS X came out. Apple took the lessons learned from Classic and OS X was mostly secure out of the box. There have been a few holes discovered along the way but they are quickly closed. Few holes have been discovered because there aren't that many hackers looking for them. All it takes is the right incentive and hackers will find exploits and backdoors Apple engineers could never imagine.

Never under estimate the tenacity or resourcefulness of hackers.

There are all the technical reasons why it is harder to write a virus for the Mac. But my personal belief is that the programmers that use Macs simply don't want to.

I'm a programmer and I love my mac. Why would I want to hurt it?
Viruses are not being written to hurt your OS. Far from it.

Black hat hackers want your computers to be running as perfectly as possible. The longer your computer is running the more personal and financial information they can steal.

They want to turn your computers into zombies. A crippled zombie is of no use to them.

ETA. I think you hit upon another reason there are so few (if any) viruses for Apple. Alot of hackers hate Microsoft so they tend to attack windows rather than Apple which they see as a good guy.

I lost that "good guy" attitude towards Apple when I found out that I had to send my IPod back to Apple just to change the battery. What the hell kind of company makes a battery operated product where you can't change the battery yourself when you need to?!?!?!?

moopet

11th September 2008, 12:08 PM

Nonsense. A 32 bit machine moves 32 bits at a time. A 64 bit machine moves 64 bits in the same amount of time. That's the whole freaking point!

My point here, which has already been corrected by GreyICE if you didn't see it, was about 32-bit apps on 64-bit systems not performing faster.

JonnyFive

11th September 2008, 12:44 PM

I want a magic computer that can run on happy thoughts and magical fairy dust. Also, it can run every piece of software ever perfectly and never slows down and does everything instantly and perfectly because it is magic.

Also, it should only cost $50 - $200.

So which kind of computer should I buy?

jsiv

11th September 2008, 01:38 PM

You are right. "Derived" is the wrong word. Inspired is more accurate
Well, I'm still having a hard time seeing how that works when it has nothing in common with UNIX other than that they're both operating systems.

Apple took the lessons learned from Classic and OS X was mostly secure out of the box. There have been a few holes discovered along the way but they are quickly closed.
To be fair to Windows, the large majority of viruses out there today don't actually work by exploiting any flaws other than the user. They're regular programs that the user is tricked into running. Usually as part of an e-mail attachment or pirated software.

There's not that much any OS can do to stop that. Once it is running it can easily trick the user into elevating its permissions and then take over the system, if it needed to.

Bob Blaylock

11th September 2008, 02:09 PM

To be fair to Windows, the large majority of viruses out there today don't actually work by exploiting any flaws other than the user. They're regular programs that the user is tricked into running. Usually as part of an e-mail attachment or pirated software.

There's not that much any OS can do to stop that. Once it is running it can easily trick the user into elevating its permissions and then take over the system, if it needed to.

There are quite a few things that an OS can do to make itself more open to such attacks. For example, including a web browser which has, built into it, the ability to download and install updates to the OS itself. Consider the site at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. I don't know if this still works under XP or Vista, but under Windows 2000 and anything older, if you visit this site using Internet Explorer, it will check to see if you have all the latest updates, and if not, will download and install them for you. Think about what this means. The very same web browser that many Windows lusers use to visit every web site, has the power to alter the operating system itself. If Microsoft's site can provide and install legitimate updates through this browser, so can any malicious site use this same feature to install malicious “updates” to your operating system.

It was also Microsoft that put forth the idea of being able to embed executable code in email messages, and having the email client (OutLook) run that code when you opened such a message. before then, I remember a coupled of hoaxes going around about the “Pen Pal” and “Join the Crew” viruses that were alleged to be spreading via email. At that time, this was a hoax, as you could not, as the hoax claimed, get infected with a virus simply by reading an email that contained it. Microsoft changed that, and along came the “Melissa” and “I Love You” viruses and a whole host of others that followed them; real-life versions of the fictional “Pen Pal” and “Join the Crew” viruses, made possible because Microsoft opened up exactly the hole that such malware needed.

jsiv

11th September 2008, 02:33 PM

The very same web browser that many Windows lusers use to visit every web site, has the power to alter the operating system itself. If Microsoft's site can provide and install legitimate updates through this browser, so can any malicious site use this same feature to install malicious “updates” to your operating system.
While this might sound possible at first, it actually isn't. The external component that updates the OS (an ActiveX control, a sort of plugin) can only be used by the authenticated Microsoft site and can only download and run code that is digitally signed by Microsoft. It has, as far as I know, never been exploited in any way.

It was also Microsoft that put forth the idea of...
Well I wasn't really discussing the past when I said "today." I'm not going claim that Microsoft hasn't done plenty of silly things in the past, but we live in the present.

leonAzul

11th September 2008, 02:46 PM

In the old days (Before OS X), Macs were plagued by viruses just like PCs. But the Macs had an advantage. Since there were fewer avenues for viruses to attack Macs (the common buffer overrun was not one of them), Apple was able to close off the attack vectors rendering most virus ineffective.

You are correct about the "fewer avenues", but mistaken about the lack of buffer overrun vulnerability. Although if you meant that any attempt to inject something useful and exploit the vulnerability before the entire system bombed, then I would have to agree :D

The main reason it was so difficult to infect pre-X Mac OS from about 1995 on was that executable code for PowerPC Macs was written to the resource fork--an extent that doesn't exist for most other OSs and file systems. Malware like "SevenDust", which attacked the "menu" resource in the System Suitcase, was indeed devastating.

The other is that, quite frankly, they made poor server systems and so they were not very popular targets.

Eventually, the only type of virus still active on the Classic Mac OS were attacking scripting vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. The most popular anti-virus software, Disinfectant, stopped making updates long before OS X came out.

IIRC, "Disinfectant" was intended to address a very limited number of threats (like "SevenDust"), and was freeware, not the complete and regularly updated package that "Virex" was.

There are all the technical reasons why it is harder to write a virus for the Mac. But my personal belief is that the programmers that use Macs simply don't want to.

It's not the application developers who are doing this: it's the vandals and thieves ;)

uruk

11th September 2008, 03:11 PM

Well, I'm still having a hard time seeing how that works when it has nothing in common with UNIX other than that they're both operating systems. According to this article: http://www.itworld.com/031006sgisco At one time early versions of Linux contained up to 200 lines of code taken directly from Unix System V. Although the code was public domain at the time and Linux no longer uses them. (and yes I know 200 hundred lines of code is an insignificant percentage of the kernel)

Here is another site mentioning the code in question: http://www.lemis.com/grog/SCO/code-comparison.html

According to the official Linux website, Linus Torvalds got the inspiration to make Linux after working with Minix (a small Unix clone: http://www.minix3.org/doc/faq.html) That would seem to suggest that he wrote his code to perform tasks in a manner similar to how he figgured Minix performed those tasks. http://www.linux.org/info/index.html

Linus himself even said that the physical layout of Linux's file system resembled the one Minix used. Though he does say that the early version of Linux was free of any actual Minix code. (for obvious legal reasons) http://www.linux.org/info/linus.html

I don't think it takes too big a stretch of the imagination to see a link or lineage from Unix to Linux. At least in the sense that if it was not for the existance of Unix, Linus would have probably not have been inspired to create Linux.

To be fair to Windows, the large majority of viruses out there today don't actually work by exploiting any flaws other than the user. They're regular programs that the user is tricked into running. Usually as part of an e-mail attachment or pirated software.

There's not that much any OS can do to stop that. Once it is running it can easily trick the user into elevating its permissions and then take over the system, if it needed to.

People seem to forget that social engineering is a very important part of hacking.

uruk

11th September 2008, 03:33 PM

My point here, which has already been corrected by GreyICE if you didn't see it, was about 32-bit apps on 64-bit systems not performing faster.

That's correct. A 32 bit application will run in 32 bit mode on a 64 bit system. The application has to written or ported to 64 bit mode inorder to be run as a 64bit application.

So you do not get any speed increase by running a 32bit application on a 64bit system.

uruk

11th September 2008, 03:35 PM

uruk

11th September 2008, 03:55 PM

jeremyp

12th September 2008, 07:15 PM

All modern Personal Computer OSes are derived from UNIX in some fashion.
Nope, not remotely true.

MSDOS was basically a quick and dirty port of UNIX.
Nope, not remotely true. Later versions of DOS borrowed features from Unix but the original version as sold by Bill Gates to IBM had nothing to do with Unix.

The GUI OS was stolen from Xerox PARCs prototype PC. Ol' Steve Jobs raised the jolly rodger and Micro-squishy, Billy Boy snuck it out from under Jobs' nose.
I'm not sure what that says, but I think it's actually a fair summary.

In my years of monkeying around with computers I've seen just about every OS around crash, including MacOS. All it takes is the right conditions.
Being version OS X 10.5.0 seems to have been "the right conditions". I saw more crashes with that than any other operating system since Win98. It's much better now though.

windows is much more dodgy because of the all the third party hardware and software that the PC has to integrate with.
Speaking as a Mac Fanboi, I have to say that WinXP is pretty rock solid even with all the third party hardware crap. The only time I've ever seen XP BSOD is with the beta version of Apple's Bootcamp drivers on a MacBook Pro.

Linux suffers from this same situation.
Linux is in a far worse position than Apple. It has a smaller percentage of the installed base and, far worse, the Linux market is fragmented by the distributions. You can write an application and test it extensively on, say, Red Hat, but find it won't even install on Ubuntu, or SuSE or Mandriva or Slackware or Gentoo or Knoppix etc etc.

So, What computer should you get? Get a PC. PCs are macho, Macs are gay. ;P
Macs are PCs. PC means "personal computer".

WildCat

12th September 2008, 09:19 PM

Hey, if anyone wants to spend an extra $1,000 for a machine you can't upgrade and swap components easily go for it. It's only money.

jsiv

13th September 2008, 03:50 AM

I don't think it takes too big a stretch of the imagination to see a link or lineage from Unix to Linux. At least in the sense that if it was not for the existance of Unix, Linus would have probably not have been inspired to create Linux.
I was actually talking about MS-DOS and Windows.

There are plenty of ActiveX exploits. Here is one: http://www.edensoft.com/exploit.html

Hackers can redirect your browser to a fake update site and get you to manualy "update" your computer with thier code. If you are not observant you'll miss the small authentication and security icons in your browser.
There have been ActiveX vulnerabilities in the past, but that has nothing to do with Windows Update. When it comes to the browser you can think of ActiveX as being similar to the Java plugin. It's a platform that allows you to run generic programs inside the browser window. Windows Update being one such program. It generally takes 3-4 clicks to install an ActiveX program these days, so the likelyhood of users voluntarily installing a dangerous one isn't very high anymore.

Any browser plugin can theoretically be exploited to compromise your system. Adobe's Flash plugin is the latest example. It's a particularly scary example as Flash runs on all the major browsers and plenty of major sites serve up third-party flash applets (mostly banners), unwittingly making them infection vectors.

moopet

13th September 2008, 03:58 AM

While this might sound possible at first, it actually isn't. The external component that updates the OS (an ActiveX control, a sort of plugin) can only be used by the authenticated Microsoft site and can only download and run code that is digitally signed by Microsoft. It has, as far as I know, never been exploited in any way.

Well I wasn't really discussing the past when I said "today." I'm not going claim that Microsoft hasn't done plenty of silly things in the past, but we live in the present.

I've never tried it and haven't researched whether it's possible, but in a bar after a couple of pints I'd be willing to bet you could:

Expect users to install an INSANE word processor which automatically runs code embedded in documents, silently, on opening the document, and has rights to alter the file system.

Write such a piece of code to spread to other documents and, while it's doing that, add a line to the %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file redirecting windowsupdate.microsoft.com to a malicious server.

Expect users to click "accept" to anything they see on screen, especially if the website says "Microsoft" in big letters.

jsiv

13th September 2008, 04:16 AM

No doubt, but that would just be exploiting the user.

Office doesn't run dangerous macros automatically anymore though. It no longer lives in a naive world where everything can be trusted. In Microsoft's defense, they weren't the only ones who had that philosophy back then.

It doesn't really matter though, as you can just have the user click a file named "I'M A VIRUS, DON'T CLICK ME.exe" instead. Chances are she will.

uruk

13th September 2008, 02:42 PM

Nope, not remotely true. Yea I know. I was corrected by jsiv. With exception of Linux, no other OS has a any link to Unix code. Read post #216 to see the link Linux has to Unix.

Nope, not remotely true. Later versions of DOS borrowed features from Unix but the original version as sold by Bill Gates to IBM had nothing to do with Unix. I know. I was corrected by jsiv. MS-DOS code was based off of CP/M. And in your statement you admit to there being an influence from Unix. How can you "borrow" a feature and not have your OS be influenced by it?

I'm not sure what that says, but I think it's actually a fair summary.
I clarified the statement in a later post.

Being version OS X 10.5.0 seems to have been "the right conditions". I saw more crashes with that than any other operating system since Win98. It's much better now though.
I have a friend who works at Intel R&D in Oregon. He said that Apple's people first refused help from the Intel engineers when Apple was porting OSX to Intel's architecture. They wound up coming around later. I suspect that is when OSX became more stable on intel CPUs.

Speaking as a Mac Fanboi, I have to say that WinXP is pretty rock solid even with all the third party hardware crap. The only time I've ever seen XP BSOD is with the beta version of Apple's Bootcamp drivers on a MacBook Pro. Well, MS had alot of time to work on the compatability issues. You learn a thing or two with all those BSODs

Linux is in a far worse position than Apple. It has a smaller percentage of the installed base and, far worse, the Linux market is fragmented by the distributions. You can write an application and test it extensively on, say, Red Hat, but find it won't even install on Ubuntu, or SuSE or Mandriva or Slackware or Gentoo or Knoppix etc etc. Linux is usually used anywhere you need a large number of PCs networked together performing a specific task running a cheap (free) OS. Renderfarms in special effects houses is a common example.

Macs are PCs. PC means "personal computer". I was making a small, facecious joke.

"PC" tends to be used when talking about a IBM clone/Microsoft machine. Watch the Mac comercials. They refer to the MS box as "PC".

jsiv

13th September 2008, 02:54 PM

The Mac is a very personal computer:

I love my mac.

arthwollipot

14th September 2008, 07:44 PM

Chances are she will.:rolleyes:

GreyICE

14th September 2008, 08:09 PM

I've never tried it and haven't researched whether it's possible, but in a bar after a couple of pints I'd be willing to bet you could:

Expect users to install an INSANE word processor which automatically runs code embedded in documents, silently, on opening the document, and has rights to alter the file system. I have office 2003 and office 2007, neither does that. What word processor are we referring to here?

Write such a piece of code to spread to other documents and, while it's doing that, add a line to the %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file redirecting windowsupdate.microsoft.com to a malicious server.
As of Windows Vista, that is quite impossible. Also hard to do on XP.
Expect users to click "accept" to anything they see on screen, especially if the website says "Microsoft" in big letters.Wait... you've developed a cure for stupid user syndrome?

arthwollipot

14th September 2008, 09:21 PM

I have office 2003 and office 2007, neither does that. What word processor are we referring to here?That's not quite true. Both Office 2003 and Office 2007 support autorun macros. However, unless the default macro security is turned off, it asks you first.

GreyICE

14th September 2008, 09:29 PM

That's not quite true. Both Office 2003 and Office 2007 support autorun macros. However, unless the default macro security is turned off, it asks you first.

Both support it, but neither will run a piece of code without your permission. If you disable it, permission is obviously implicit, but because you had to disable it, it was there.

As I said, no one has come up with a cure for stupid user syndrome. Macs are not immune:
http://wordprocessing.about.com/od/securityanddatastorage/a/macros2004.htm

arthwollipot

14th September 2008, 10:33 PM

Both support it, but neither will run a piece of code without your permission. If you disable it, permission is obviously implicit, but because you had to disable it, it was there.My one claim to fame is that I may be the first person in Australia who received a support call about a Word macro virus. I happened to have read about the first one - Concept - in a computer magazine the week before, so I knew what to look for. I reported it to our antivirus supplier (a fairly big one at the time, now long since eaten by Symantec) and they had never heard of the idea.

The Concept virus was notable because it included a macro called "Payload" which was written into the document template. Payload contained a single line, commented out: "I think this proves my point".

Four years later an entire government department was brought to a standstill for six weeks because they had no provision in their network security for macro viruses. We poor sods on the helpdesk were manually deleting the macros from the normal.dot - sometimes six or seven times a day for some callers - while two separate macro viruses ran rampant.

Point proved.

jsiv

15th September 2008, 02:07 AM

:rolleyes:
Feminist!

ddt

15th September 2008, 06:00 AM

According to this article: http://www.itworld.com/031006sgisco At one time early versions of Linux contained up to 200 lines of code taken directly from Unix System V. Although the code was public domain at the time and Linux no longer uses them. (and yes I know 200 hundred lines of code is an insignificant percentage of the kernel)
Without looking at that site: those 200 lines are the header file defining the values errno can have? (Yes, I followed the SCO debacle). Those lines are POSIX mandated. Every OS must have them, if it wants to be able to sport a C compiler. MacOS surely has them too, as these lines are also in the BSD distributions. BSD has, as part of the 1994 settlement with AT&T/Novell, much more System-V code than Linux does. But the shared code between the various UNIXes (System-V, AIX, Linux, BSD) does not amount to much more than what you can already read from the POSIX standards, which say which features (system calls specifically) a decent OS should have.

According to the official Linux website, Linus Torvalds got the inspiration to make Linux after working with Minix (a small Unix clone: http://www.minix3.org/doc/faq.html) That would seem to suggest that he wrote his code to perform tasks in a manner similar to how he figgured Minix performed those tasks. http://www.linux.org/info/index.html
He wanted to write his own UNIX clone, just as Andy Tanenbaum (the author of Minix), but for different reasons. But the Linux kernel is (and was) vastly different from the Minix one. Minix worked on every x86, from 8088 upwards. Linux only ever worked from the 80386 on, as Linus took advantage of the MMU. So there is little chance that there is similarity in kernel code between the two.

Linus himself even said that the physical layout of Linux's file system resembled the one Minix used. Though he does say that the early version of Linux was free of any actual Minix code. (for obvious legal reasons) http://www.linux.org/info/linus.html
The first versions of Linux used the Minix file system. Later, ext2 was developed. But it's a freaking file system. How is that gonna help you with taking over the computer? That code does not manage permissions, it merely checks them and the routines for checking them are elsewhere in the kernel.

As to the lay-out: most UNIX filesystems look alike. The concept of an inode and the lay-out of an inode are quite similar. ext2 looks very much like the ufs filesystem of BSD and Sun Solaris, even in the organization where inodes are located (in cylinder groups or block groups) and how the allocation of inodes and data blocks is administered.

I don't think it takes too big a stretch of the imagination to see a link or lineage from Unix to Linux. At least in the sense that if it was not for the existance of Unix, Linus would have probably not have been inspired to create Linux.
Sure. But he (and the rest of the kernel team) wrote the actual code from scratch.

ddt

15th September 2008, 06:08 AM

It doesn't really matter though, as you can just have the user click a file named "I'M A VIRUS, DON'T CLICK ME.exe" instead. Chances are she will.

I have entertained the thought of writing a small app that makes a window with the text:
Warning! This program will erase all contents of your hard drive. Do not continue!
with the usual "Continue" and "Cancel" buttons underneath, and spreading that by email. Of course, the program would function as advertised.

I'm afraid though, that people might still press "Continue" and drag me into court, and that the judge would sentence in their favour.

GreyICE

15th September 2008, 06:08 AM

My one claim to fame is that I may be the first person in Australia who received a support call about a Word macro virus. I happened to have read about the first one - Concept - in a computer magazine the week before, so I knew what to look for. I reported it to our antivirus supplier (a fairly big one at the time, now long since eaten by Symantec) and they had never heard of the idea.

The Concept virus was notable because it included a macro called "Payload" which was written into the document template. Payload contained a single line, commented out: "I think this proves my point".

Four years later an entire government department was brought to a standstill for six weeks because they had no provision in their network security for macro viruses. We poor sods on the helpdesk were manually deleting the macros from the normal.dot - sometimes six or seven times a day for some callers - while two separate macro viruses ran rampant.

Point proved.That was 1995. I mean we're talking more than a decade ago.

Yes, computer security was a lot more lax back then. Everyone's products have improved (if you really think it's hard to program a virus for a 95 era mac, I assure you, the have as many security flaws, but at the time they were like 0.1% of the market).

Dan O.

15th September 2008, 06:11 AM

We poor sods on the helpdesk were manually deleting the macros from the normal.dot - sometimes six or seven times a day for some callers - while two separate macro viruses ran rampant.

Couldn't you just send all of your clients a document containing the "instructions to fix the problem"? :)

JonnyFive

15th September 2008, 07:03 AM

I'm still waiting for the HAL 9000 series computers. I'll be sure to keep the pod bay doors unlocked.

Screw that... I'm waiting for the new version of A.M. to come out!

I have entertained the thought of writing a small app that makes a window with the text:
Warning! This program will erase all contents of your hard drive. Do not continue!
with the usual "Continue" and "Cancel" buttons underneath, and spreading that by email. Of course, the program would function as advertised.

But PCs already have such a program!

format.com c:

uruk

15th September 2008, 12:32 PM

Without looking at that site: those 200 lines are the header file defining the values errno can have? (Yes, I followed the SCO debacle). Those lines are POSIX mandated. Every OS must have them, if it wants to be able to sport a C compiler. MacOS surely has them too, as these lines are also in the BSD distributions. BSD has, as part of the 1994 settlement with AT&T/Novell, much more System-V code than Linux does. But the shared code between the various UNIXes (System-V, AIX, Linux, BSD) does not amount to much more than what you can already read from the POSIX standards, which say which features (system calls specifically) a decent OS should have.

He wanted to write his own UNIX clone, just as Andy Tanenbaum (the author of Minix), but for different reasons. But the Linux kernel is (and was) vastly different from the Minix one. Minix worked on every x86, from 8088 upwards. Linux only ever worked from the 80386 on, as Linus took advantage of the MMU. So there is little chance that there is similarity in kernel code between the two.

The first versions of Linux used the Minix file system. Later, ext2 was developed. But it's a freaking file system. How is that gonna help you with taking over the computer? That code does not manage permissions, it merely checks them and the routines for checking them are elsewhere in the kernel.

As to the lay-out: most UNIX filesystems look alike. The concept of an inode and the lay-out of an inode are quite similar. ext2 looks very much like the ufs filesystem of BSD and Sun Solaris, even in the organization where inodes are located (in cylinder groups or block groups) and how the allocation of inodes and data blocks is administered.

Sure. But he (and the rest of the kernel team) wrote the actual code from scratch.
Very intertesting. I learn someting new everyday.

I know no OS can have any actual code from Unix because of copywrite laws. My point was as to the influence Unix had over modern OS.

Most of the people who have written a PC OS had at one time delt with some form of Unix and was inspired by it. (usually it was they didn't like how Unix handled some task or had to port to a different architecture)

They certainly had to write original code, but don't you think that they used Unix as some form of guide? Saw how Unix handled a specific task and went on from there to develop thier own way? Linus did even if it was a Unix clone he looking to improve on.

I'm holding a computer maintenance text book where the author (Jean Andrews) indicates a direct or indirect influence Unix had on PC OSs.

If she's wrong, then she's wrong.

jsiv

15th September 2008, 12:57 PM

Actually, many operating systems do contain code that comes straight from Unix. More specifically, the Berekeley Software Distribution -- better known as BSD. It has a license that allows pretty much any use of the souce code, including in closed source software.

The Mac OS X kernel, for instance, is a derivative product of BSD Unix. Same with popular server operating systems like FreeBSD. The most popular TCP/IP implementation on the Amiga was a direct port from BSD.

The odd BSD-derived code probably also exists in components that are part of Windows. That doesn't mean that the OS itself is bears any resemblence to Unix though.

ddt

15th September 2008, 02:17 PM

Very intertesting. I learn someting new everyday.

I know no OS can have any actual code from Unix because of copywrite laws. My point was as to the influence Unix had over modern OS.
Depending of what you call "Unix". SVR4 (System V Release 4)? Yes, that's copyrighted by Novell. But it also contains large portions of BSD, much to the embarrassment of AT&T when they sued the Regents of the University of California Berkeley over those measly lines of AT&T code that were still in BSD. The BSD license back then still contained the "advertising clause" and AT&T had stripped all comments about the authors in its source code...

"Pure" SVR4 is only found in SCO's Unixware. Other commercial Unices are either home-built (AIX, Tru64) or loosely based on SVR4. Solaris is based on SVR4, but contains so many bits and pieces from different writers that it took Sun a couple of years to clear all the legal bits to open up Solaris.

Most of the people who have written a PC OS had at one time delt with some form of Unix and was inspired by it. (usually it was they didn't like how Unix handled some task or had to port to a different architecture)

They certainly had to write original code, but don't you think that they used Unix as some form of guide? Saw how Unix handled a specific task and went on from there to develop thier own way? Linus did even if it was a Unix clone he looking to improve on.
Building the applications that come with an OS is easy enough, but designing the kernel and the system call interface is the hard part. Unix has provided the inspiration for many there indeed because it was the only one that was open. For the early Unix versions, see Lyons' "Commentary on Unix V6" from 1976 with the complete source code of Unix V6, later the "Design and Implementation of BSD 4.3", or more in general Tanenbaum's book on Operating System design which sported the floppies with Minix. Most modern OS'es are in some way Unix compatible (as in POSIX compliant).

That does not mean that everyone does it the same way. Tanenbaum is a big fan of microkernels, and Minix is thus designed that way; Linus wrote the Linux kernel as a big monolithic kernel (search for the Torvalds/Tanenbaum debate :)), to name a big difference.

I'm holding a computer maintenance text book where the author (Jean Andrews) indicates a direct or indirect influence Unix had on PC OSs.

If she's wrong, then she's wrong.
That surely is the case for other OS'es for the PC, such as MacOS X and BeOS, but not so much for Microsoft OS'es. DOS 2 introduced directories after Unix, but the design of the FAT filesystem is at odds with the Unix filesystem. Windows 95/98/ME are still fundamentally single-user systems. Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 was designed, as said by another poster, by Dave Cutler et al from DEC, who had worked there on VMS. DEC in those times suffered heavily from a NIH syndrome, which is part of the reason why they collapsed :). WinNT, as VMS, has a bigger overhead for the creation of a new process (which is quite cheap in Unix) and thus uses much more heavily multi-threaded applications where a Unix application would just spawn a child process to do the same stuff. WinNT was at first designed as a microkernel, but then it turned out that this didn't perform and the graphics subsystem was re-incorporated into the kernel - so now we're stuck with a server OS (2003) which always has a graphical interface running... Tanenbaum's book discusses the design of Win2000 in detail.

arthwollipot

15th September 2008, 06:51 PM

Couldn't you just send all of your clients a document containing the "instructions to fix the problem"? :)We did. You really think customers can follow moderately complex instructions? :rolleyes:

Dan O.

15th September 2008, 08:57 PM

Who said anything about having the customers follow the instructions. Microsoft had the foresight to have their applications execute instructions in scripts attached to documents.

Somebody did in fact try this with a variant of the CODE-RED or a similar virus that caused the vulnerable computer to download and run the updates provided by Microsoft to repair the vulnerability. Microsoft then proved that they didn't want those systems to be repaired by shutting down the update server.

GreyICE

15th September 2008, 09:07 PM

Who said anything about having the customers follow the instructions. Microsoft had the foresight to have their applications execute instructions in scripts attached to documents. Yes, this totally happens in versions of Windows that were made after the turn of the century.

Which version of office does this?

Somebody did in fact try this with a variant of the CODE-RED or a similar virus that caused the vulnerable computer to download and run the updates provided by Microsoft to repair the vulnerability. Microsoft then proved that they didn't want those systems to be repaired by shutting down the update server. Links? Source?

Code Red exploited a good old buffer overflow which can nail absolutely any system. Buffer overflows are very common attacks, and that particular one had been patched for months.

Any system is vulnerable.

http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/MOAB-17-01-2007.html

That's one performed on a mac.

But sure, fanboy out, Microsoft Evil, Apple good, whatever.

arthwollipot

15th September 2008, 09:21 PM

Which version of office does this?All of them, but versions since the turn of the century require the user to disable the default security in order to do so.

GreyICE

15th September 2008, 10:06 PM

All of them, but versions since the turn of the century require the user to disable the default security in order to do so.
That is not running unsigned code without the user's permission. That is the user granting permission for Word to run any code attached to a document file. It is then the user's responsibility to make sure that unsigned code is not run.

It is completely disingenuous to say that Word will run unsigned code without the user's permission, but then say that Word will only do so with the user's permission. A bit like saying that cars can accelerate themselves without the driver doing anything, but only if he sets the car on cruise control.

Dan O.

15th September 2008, 10:16 PM

Links? Source?

Strategies of Computer Worms (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~aprakash/eecs588/handouts/szor_ch09.pdf)
CodeGreen removed the CodeRed infections from systems and also removedthe backdoor components of other CodeRed variants. Furthermore, it downloadedand installed patches to close the vulnerability.

I think this was the reported result: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=56873

If you want the virus source, you'll have to ask elsewhere. :)

GreyICE

15th September 2008, 10:24 PM

Strategies of Computer Worms (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~aprakash/eecs588/handouts/szor_ch09.pdf)

I think this was the reported result: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=56873

If you want the virus source, you'll have to ask elsewhere. :)

Sorry, the article doesn't mention the DDOS attack and the DDOS attack doesn't mention Code Green.

Given that Code Red was released on July 13, 2001 and the article you linked to was January 25, 2001, I'm calling bull on this time-traveling computer worm.

arthwollipot

15th September 2008, 10:43 PM

That is not running unsigned code without the user's permission. That is the user granting permission for Word to run any code attached to a document file. It is then the user's responsibility to make sure that unsigned code is not run.

It is completely disingenuous to say that Word will run unsigned code without the user's permission, but then say that Word will only do so with the user's permission. A bit like saying that cars can accelerate themselves without the driver doing anything, but only if he sets the car on cruise control.Okay. I understand where the disconnect is now. We're vehemently agreeing.

MS Office does not run unsigned code without the user's permission. But if the user manually disables the default security controls, it is capable of doing so.

Dan O.

15th September 2008, 11:14 PM

Sorry, the article doesn't mention the DDOS attack and the DDOS attack doesn't mention Code Green.

Given that Code Red was released on July 13, 2001 and the article you linked to was January 25, 2001, I'm calling bull on this time-traveling computer worm.

I'm sorry. I was just trying to find links related to an event I witnessed many years ago. Nobody told my there was going to be a test or I would have taken notes.

GreyICE

15th September 2008, 11:37 PM

I'm sorry. I was just trying to find links related to an event I witnessed many years ago. Nobody told my there was going to be a test or I would have taken notes.

It's not a test. It's just that I don't believe the details of a half-remembered event are likely to tell the full story, especially when they're couched in terms like:

Microsoft then proved that they didn't want those systems to be repaired by shutting down the update server.

Snopes is absolutely full of internet rumors that sound very similar to this. Some are true, some are false.

I don't think its unreasonable to display some skepticism when you are confronted with an anecdote that makes Microsoft out to be an absolute beast. And I don't think its unreasonable to doublecheck dates when faced with two stories that on the face of it seem totally unrelated.

I'd think a basic 'test' for information would be making sure cause FOLLOWS effect. I don't think that's an irrational standard for evidence.