“I have been using Mac OS X as my primary OS for almost a year now, but last night I switched back. What spurred it is that my Mac OS X partition crashed and it wouldn’t boot back into the OS – I used rescue tools and drive scanners but it appears that the partition just disappeared. I booted into a much smaller NTFS partition and put the Vista install disk in.”
a flame war
This is going to be a Vista/Ubuntu flamewar. I think the Apple faithful left OSAlert awhile back. They used to have a pretty strong presence, but now I don’t even know what Apple’s up to anymore because we don’t get very many Apple-related article submissions these days. Ever since Ubuntu got big it’s just not as cool to be a Mac zealot
It’s good that the Apple zealots are keeping quiet. Now if only the Ubuntu zealots would do the same, we’ll get to see a lot more sensible articles/discussions here on OSAlert.
So the MS whores can run rampant?
+1.
These arguments just don’t stop do they? People will use whatever OS they want and are obviously happy with their decision or else they wouldn’t be using it.
Nope, and those arguments probably will never stop so long as the discussion is dominated by children with narcissistic personality disorder (and little grasp of the basics of rational debate). Of course, calling it “arguing” is pretty generous – most of it’s just juvenile bickering filled with post-hoc fallacies and “my anecdotal evidence is bigger than yours” duels.
Nope, and those arguments probably will never stop so long as the discussion is dominated by children with narcissistic personality disorder (and little grasp of the basics of rational debate). Of course, calling it “arguing” is pretty generous – most of it’s just juvenile bickering filled with post-hoc fallacies and “my anecdotal evidence is bigger than yours” duels.
Actually, they will never stop so long as the preinstall-OS landscape is dominated by one OS – and I don’t care which OS it is, though realistically it’s not actually going to be anything but Windows.
Think about it. Do you get childish car drivers? Of course. Do you get endless carmake wars? No. Why? Because the market is not saturated by the products of one domineering company with an allergy to the free market.
Sure you do. Just go to any rural area, ask a group of people if they prefer Ford or Chevy or Dodge pickups, and enjoy the ensuing fistfight.
It’s just that OS advocates are much better-represented online.
this article reminded me of those commercials where they show happy clients; and they expect us to believe that those happy actors are actually use the products in real life.
very cheap and pathetic.
here’s something to the author of that article. I takes vista 2GB of memory to get close to what OSX and Linux can do in 512MB. That by itself shows what a terrible piece of engineering Vista is.
Sorry the last time i tried, XP was more responsive than Ubuntu on similar hardware. GNome is very slow. If you add the slowness of OpenOffice on top of it, then it was almost unusable.
It was a thinkpad with 512 MB RAM.
Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.
Even Gnome developers agree that there are slowness and memory consumption problems in GNOME. KDE is not much better either.
And don’t ask me to try useless XFCE etc.
None of the options in Linux provide a smooth integrated experience of Vista or OSX.
I know i will be modded down now even though your equivalent contents are modded up just because you talk in favor of Linux and I against it.
People will mod you down because you make an offtopic comment, or although against the ‘policy’ – a stupid poorly constructed argument. I can look through this forum and find atleast 1/2 dozen posts that are pro-Windows, infact, the latest one was marked 5 which outlined the lack of commercial applications on Linux. Sorry, to scream ‘persecution’ is alot easier to accept that maybe your post was crap.
Regarding your ‘performance issues’ – nice that you failed to provide your machine specifications, I’m sitting here with a HP dv6209TX laptop running Ubuntu, it is vastly faster than Windows Vista Business Edition on the same machine, and as for OpenSolaris B63, it is rocketting fast.
I’m sorry, but it is absolutely pathetic when an operating system that has been in development for 5-6 years to have such dog terrible performance – even if you take hardware compatibility and software compatibility out of the mix, the performance is still terrible.
I’m sorry, but when small company’s and organisations (relative to Microsoft) like Conical, Sun, Red Hat, Novell, Debian and the likes can push out distributions which are superior speed, stability and security compared to an organisation the size of Microsoft, there needs to be some heads rolling at Microsoft, because obviously their resources are poorly managed and allocated.
Oh and according to you this is insightful, right? Nice:)
this article reminded me of those commercials where they show happy clients; and they expect us to believe that those happy actors are actually use the products in real life.
very cheap and pathetic.
here’s something to the author of that article. I takes vista 2GB of memory to get close to what OSX and Linux can do in 512MB. That by itself shows what a terrible piece of engineering Vista is.
CrazyDude0 – what the going on about? I didn’t make the below statement – about about using the reply link correctly or head back to ‘web surfing school’.
Vista only needs 1GB of RAM. And even then Vista is allocating RAM that it doesn’t need just so it can have it availablle, and then if something else needs it, Vista release that RAM.
Unused RAM is useless RAM.
Also, perhaps you forget, but OSX was in development for longer and the performance of 10.0 was FAR FAR worse than Vista is today, and the functionality wasn’t even there.
Also, Compiz and Beryl are both CRAP. Not only are the effects not even close to as smooth as Vista, but the whole engine isn’t nearly as powerful as Vista’s.
The only reason that Vista “requires” a Dx9 video card is because it gives developers that much more room to play with as far as effects et al go, whilst know that it will run smoothly on any PC that can handle the full Aero experience.
Interesting that you talk about that; when UNIX people said this, the Windows crowd used to boohoo it and claimed it was a excuse made up for bloat – now because Windows does this through nifty new names, its all good.
Who is talking about MacOS X? I certainly didn’t raise it – I certainly didn’t defend the fact that MacOS X continued to be in ‘beta’ up until the late 10.3.x cycles, and even then, 10.4.x was as buggy as hell.
Heck, I ran Mac’s for around 4 years, G4 eMac and G5 iMac, and all I can say is ‘don’t believe the hype’ – I’ve used MacOS X on machines I’ve owned from 10.2.x to 10.4.x, all quite frankly, they’re buggy; if Microsoft shipped something as buggy as the experience I had with the early versions of MacOS X, they would be crucified in seconds.
Me, I don’t care. I don’t use or want those affects; I want an operating system that is snappy, reliable and stable. I want an operating system that is secure, reliable and fast. Both MacOS X and Windows fail on those counts.
I don’t understand the attraction to bling, for me, I’ve got Ubuntu here, and I certainly don’t feel the need to enable effects – I stick to the status quo, and it suites me fine and dandy.
I’m not part of the “Windows crowd” nor did I ever say that the saying was rubbish.
The effects are supposed to be for visual cues as to what is going on, which Vista kind of sorta does, OSX does it as well, default Compiz is pretty good about that, but Beryl is especially bling bling even at default settings.
Also it was off-loaded to the GPU so as to make the whole UI smoother, etc…
Where did I say that you were part of the Windows crowd; I never specified that you were in or part of it – what you run on your computer, quite frankly, doesn’t interest me in the slightest.
Visual clues – how? I have a look on the various places where there are these effects, and they offer me nothing in the way of ‘visual clues’.
Going by my experience with MacOS X and Windows Vista, both have failed miserably for that goal.
I guess that’s why I was using 10.3 and 10.4 (and 10.2 for that part) for production use in video editing where there are very tight schedules and any down time costs you big money.
Did I mention that we delivered on time? Ever since 10.3 I haven’t seen any kernel panics, despite the fact that we were using quite some exotic hardware (video capture and realtime SD/uncompressed cards). I don’t know where you get your claims from, but it looks like you’re talking out of your arse.
Shhhh…..
Let him plug Ubuntu in peace.
Obviously you don’t do anything particularly interesting, like browsing SMB shares for instance – or printing over a network, or trying to get some of the most basic of features – why else do you think there are posts upon posts upon posts about ‘fixing the f*cking finder”? because MacOS X is absolutely perfect?
“We Delivered ontime” – who are we? you’re Apple? by virtue of you screaming on the side lines you were magically able to make Apple ship MacOS X faster to market?
Oh, and for the smarmy little individual who posted as a reply to me, I am only using Ubuntu as a ‘benchmark’ – heck, replace Ubuntu with Fedora 7 (once released) or OpenSolaris, or even some flavour of *BSD if you want.
The point I’m trying to make is that to some how claim that Windows Vista is crap, which there fore automatically makes MacOS X awesome, is a stupid notion.
For me, all operating systems suck, what I tend to focus on using tend to suck less than the alternatives.
Like all software, Tiger is not bug-free, but it’s certainly not “buggy as hell”. Whatever bugs it may have is certainly less severe than the X failures from Ubuntu updates or Vista’s driver problems.
It’s not about effects, but rather offloading grunt work (eg. compositing) to the GPU and free the CPU for real work.
Pardon? remember the firewire corruption issue? the network driver issue? please, it hasn’t been all sunshine and lolly pops which many Mac devotee’s try to make it out to be.
To be honest, I don’t remember any of those.
None of those affected me in any visible way. They didn’t cause me to lose any work and my machine just kept on chugging. Now I realize that isn’t what some want to hear, but nobody is claiming it’s all sunshine. Nevertheless, it hasn’t been “buggy as hell” either.
But I never said that it was ‘buggy as hell’ now – I pointed out that for example, 10.4 didn’t become remotely stable until around 10.4.4 (some would claim later).
The point I’m trying to make is that MacOS X went through some growing pains as well, but is rediculous when there are posters who scream about Apple delivering MacOS X ontime – sure, Microsoft could have delivered Windows Vista on time, but it would have been so buggy and unreliable, they would have been crucified.
The delivery date means nothing if the product is so buggy that you’re then having to wait another 6months for service packs/combo updates to make the operating system remotely usable,
But that’s my point. I’ve used OS X since 10.2, and have installed each new version on the day they were released. None of them can ever be classed as “buggy as hell”. I do not remember any issues that would class it as such.
I agree with you that there are some fanboys for whom Apple does no wrong (and to them Leopard isn’t late). But to call the versions of OS X prior to 10.4.4 buggy as hell is a bit over the top.
Who said that before 10.4.4 they were as buggy as hell? I certainly didn’t; I said that MacOS X 10.4 BEFORE 10.4.4 – see the link between the 10.4 release and 10.4.4? Just as I said with 10.3 was more buggy than 10.3.8 or 10.2 was more buggy than 10.2.5.
Each new release of MacOS X has been consistently buggy until around 4 or so revisions into the release. Just like Windows Vista is going to be painful until SP1 – I actually wonder whether there is a deliberate inclusion of a tonne of debugging code so that the guinea pigs can give feed back to Microsoft for their server and service pack – probably explain the crap performance.
Yup. 8 times more than a Linux+Gnome (or XP/Win2K3 Server) system with equivalent functionality (requires 3rd party tools for Windows 5.x). Nice work
Unused RAM is useless RAM.
Seems that the design is taken from FreeBSD.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#TOP-…
Hear, hear. Once I got sound working (and desktop effects are off), I have no problems playing videos in Ubuntu 7.04 on my laptop, yet if I use Vista, video is very choppy, unless it’s Flash or QuickTime, for some reason.
“Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.”
I guess that is true, if you consider DRM and bloat features.
Quit it folks! Let’s be honest and admit that none of the current operating systems offer all of the features we want with the efficiency we expect. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, and it’s really frustrating that not a single one of them offers the best of both worlds.
Desktop Linux isn’t meeting expectations because the expectations are too high. Vista isn’t meeting expectations because in some respects it’s worse than XP. MacOS isn’t meeting expectations because global climate change must be affecting the Reality Distortion Field. Anyone who actually cares about their OS of choice should be disappointed.
The only solace I take in the state of the desktop OS market is that for all of its weaknesses, Linux distributions like Ubuntu have more promise than Windows or MacOS. Things are clearly getting better in all respects. It’s moving in the right direction, while Windows is two steps forward, one step back (generously speaking), and MacOS is barely moving at all.
I think that certain people are wired to perceive state and others look beyond to progress. Linux enthusiasts tend to ignore the state for the progress, and that’s what leads to unrealistic expectations. Folks who look at the state of the Linux desktop here and now don’t understand what in the world the Linux enthusiasts are seeing when they gush about how awesome it is. We talk of features in SVN as if they’re already a part of the established stack, and if Dell is considering Ubuntu on their systems, then that might as well mean that its a radio button for every single PC they sell. If Linux will be ready for the desktop eventually, then it is ready for us today.
We think Linux is awesome because we know it will be truly awesome someday, and that’s more that I can say for Windows.
Nice post!
Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.
You are seriously tripping if you actually believe this statement.
On a default Windows installation where is:
1 The DVD Burning software like K3B or GnomeBaker? Add Nero $86.
2 The full Office Suite like OpenOffice? Add Microsoft Office $680.
3 The graphics editing software like Gimp? Add Adobe Photoshop $650.
4 Finance software like GnuCash? Add Quicken Home $350.
5 Vector graphics software like Inkscape? Add Adobe Illustrator $600.
6 Audio format converter like SoundConverter? Add Switch $20.
That’s an extra US$2386, probably more than the cost of the computer!
Incidentally, I didn’t mod you down, because you are entitled to your opinion; you’re just wrong.
1 The DVD Burning software like K3B or GnomeBaker? Add Nero $86.
CDBurnerXP pro. It’s free. http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
2 The full Office Suite like OpenOffice? Add Microsoft Office $680.
What’s stopping you from running OpenOffice on Windows? Please, at least you have the option of running MS Office natively with the least hassle on Windows, as opposed to jumping through hoops with Wine.
3 The graphics editing software like Gimp? Add Adobe Photoshop $650.
Again, GIMP doesn’t exist on Windows? And at least you have the option of running Photoshop natively on Windows, something you lack on Linux.
4 Finance software like GnuCash? Add Quicken Home $350.
http://www.gnucash.org/ read up on the news. There is nothing stopping you from running GnuCash on Windows. Why compare GnuCash to the most expensive personal finance manager on Windows?
5 Vector graphics software like Inkscape? Add Adobe Illustrator $600.
Funny, http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en lists a windows installer …
6 Audio format converter like SoundConverter? Add Switch $20.
Do a google search for your own format converters, ok? Free ones exist too.
You and all Linux fanatics need to do a reality check. Windows is only more expensive than Linux if you factor in the initial investment of purchasing a Windows license. After that, there is a plethora of free (and Free) software that’s available for use.
There is *no* point in comparing OSS alternatives with what are arguably high-end applications. Inkscape vs Illustrator is just laughable. You can always argue that the average user isn’t going to need all the features of the commercial package. If that is the case, what is stopping them from using the Free/OSS alternative? Those exist on Windows too.
The only significant difference, is that Windows allows you to run all those commercial software packages with the least amount of hassle. Sure, it’s not perfect but it beats messing about with Wine.
So, for those who can’t be arsed to read a long post, the short version is this: Most free software packages are available on both Linux and Windows. Don’t fudge the cost of running a Windows computer by adding ridiculously expensive high-end commercial software, while allowing Linux to use Free software that is just as available on Windows.
You comparing cdburnerxp pro with k3b ?
Now come on 
True, if you know all those pieces of software, or how to find them. When you install a decent linux distro, it’s all just there.
Well, he listed Gnomebaker in the same breath as k3b
But it’s been a long time since I used KDE, so perhaps k3b has come a long way since then.
You comparing cdburnerxp pro with k3b ?
Now come on 
Well, it offers all the features I and most people need, but here’s a fact for you: I got Nero for FREE when I bought my ASUS DVD-Writer, which cost something like 30-40$.
True, if you know all those pieces of software, or how to find them. When you install a decent linux distro, it’s all just there.
It’s there installed with tons of crap I don’t want, or inside the freaking package manager which is much worse to search than Google.
I really hate the package manager concept – it’s slow to start, slow to search, I don’t have a clue what to install so I have to search, you guessed it – Google, to find which software is good and which is not.
————–
And now on topic: I’ve tried Vista and went back to XP. There are some nice things in it, but it’s not running smoothly enough yet to justify a switch. I really doubt that Vista is at this point better than OS X. Maybe after SP1, but certainly not now.
Please read the quote I was referring to before responding.
Vista certainly needs more RAM but it provides better feature than default Linux install that you are talking about.
We are talking about a DEFAULT install on Windows. The issue about whether you can install something later is not relevant.
Why did I list GnuCash to the most expensive finance manager on Windows? Because GnuCash is a Quicken clone. It was deliberately designed to work like Quicken. It even uses Quickens’ .QIF files.
In addition, CDBurnerXP is limited, it has problems with Video DVDs. K3B does not.
Also, the apps I listed are by far the most popular applications used for those purposes under Windows.
Do you really think that the average desktop computer user has the computer literacy level to find, download, and install all of those packages on Windows? I sure know that my mother doesn’t, or my father, or my grandparents. Can you name one “Average desktop user” that could?
In comparison, to install a new software package under Ubuntu, the average desktop user can click Applications, fire up Add/Remove, search for “graphics,” and install The GIMP in a matter of minutes without any fear of spyware or viruses.
Edited 2007-05-08 11:20
Here we go with the completely moronic computer users argument again….
If they aren’t able to download a file and double click it on Windows, what makes you think they are going to be able to use Apt?
Is it so hard to type something into download.com?
Do you really think that the average desktop computer user has the computer literacy level to find, download, and install all of those packages on Windows? I sure know that my mother doesn’t, or my father, or my grandparents. Can you name one “Average desktop user” that could?
In comparison, to install a new software package under Ubuntu, the average desktop user can click Applications, fire up Add/Remove, search for “graphics,” and install The GIMP in a matter of minutes without any fear of spyware or viruses.
While a small number of applications from apt repository are good, e.g. Apache, FireFox, PostgreSQL, etc, most of them are crap, abandoned, or useless (only the author thinks it useful). Moreover, the description is very minimalistic, and also the documentation is usually poor. The collections also seems stagnant, compared to tucows, versiontracker, etc. The main reason is, no one can sell linux shareware, because the community only want gpl’d softwares, beside insignificant 0.4% market share.
I’m sorry, no cookie for you. Most of that software is available free for windows also and a whole lot more that’s not available for Linux. As an Ubuntu user, It frustrates the hell out of me to have to boot windows to use open source software that simply sucks in Linux, such as video and sound editing apps. So please don’t use the argument that windows users have to buy all that software, because it’s simply not true!
First of all, most of those Open Source packages you mention are available on windows as well. Secondly all of commercial those packages are far more capable than their open source equivalent. Thirdly if you don’t need those advanced features and for some reason don’t want open source software, there are much cheaper alternatives available on windows than the ones you mentioned. Finally if you need all those advanced features then at least under windows you have the option of getting them, something you don’t necessarily have under Linux.
In fact, for basically any class of software you mention, the available choice under Windows far outstrips that of Linux. Don’t get me wrong, I think Linux is great and use it every day, but available quality software is not Linux’s strongest point.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think Linux is great and use it every day, but available quality software is not Linux’s strongest point.”
I think you’re confusing quality with quantity. Granted there is a LOT of software for Windows but in all honesty most of it isn’t very good. How many inferior Notepad clones are there? Win-Zip clones? FTP clients? Probably billions and the majority of them are crap.
How many text editors and ftp clients does Linux have? I don’t think this is a line of criticism which Linux will do well in.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how you slice it, almost all good software that runs on Linux also runs on Windows, and in addition there are very many top quality pieces of software that run on Windows and not Linux. The 12 crap pieces of windows only software don’t lessen the value of the 2 great pieces of Windows only software.
“in addition there are very many top quality pieces of software that run on Windows and not Linux.”
The opposite is also true.
I am interested to know what these pieces of software are. All the major applications I use on Linux are available across platforms. These are GCC, R, Octave, Gnuplot, swi-prolog, LaTeX and dia. I can’t think of anything that runs on Linux but not on Windows.
What packages are you thinking off?
“What packages are you thinking off?”
I can think of quite a few. I happen to think ROX is a great desktop system and it does not run on Windows.
Many network tools and monitoring systems such as Nagios, Ethereal, tcpdump etc does either not run on Windows or does not run well on it. KDE and it’s assorted applications does not run on Windows (yet).
ROX is technically available via cygwin, but I’ll agree it’s hardly a usable solution.
Client side Nagios is mainly accessed through a web browser and thus OS agnostic. Server side Nagios is a) not a desktop or workstation app and b) available for windows.
I’ve used Ethereal on windows on a number of occasions and never run into real problems. I haven’t used tcpdump on windows, but I know it exists.
No it really isn’t. I can think of two or three examples off the top of my head, only one of which is Linux exclusive. All are expensive pieces of specialty software which user outside of the field will never run into, and certainly never use at home.
Care to name your counter examples?
It is clearly possible that Ubuntu is slower than XP. But other persons claim Ubuntu is faster.
Calling Gnome slow is pretty much impossible since the performance of Gnome depends highly on the configuration. Gnome on my system is extremely snappy and beats the crap out of XP and even Windows 2003 Server (which is very snappy I might add). Of course I have more ram, and that may make a difference here considering the differences between NT 5.X and Linux utilisation of memory.
However it is perfectly possible that a bloated version of Gnome on Ubuntu on a machine with too little ram is slower than a streamlined version of XP. But then we would be comparing apples with oranges.
You are as usual really good at spreading undocumented claims and using big words to express little ideas.
Nobody is modding you down for liking Windows and disliking Linux. Or at least I hope it is not the case. I have modded you up on occasion and down on occasions. More down than up because you tend to be off-topic or being offensive (representing personal preferences as evidence is offensive by my standards). Claiming XFCE is useless is a good reason for modding you down – you don’t even specify why you consider it useless. Despite the fact that your claims prove you haven’t used Linux+Gnome/KDE in the last 5 years.
If we were talking about common Gnome 2.12 compared with Windows 2003 Server I’d grant you that Gnome was slow. But newer versions have seen spectacular speed improvements – and it was about time I might add.
If I made a post that described something as “useless” and then failed to provide any substantiation of my opinion whatsoever, I probably expect to be modded down too.
But I do realize that affecting self-pity over easily-predictable reactions has become a rather popular rhetorical device around here, so hey – carry on.
this article reminded me of those commercials where they show happy clients; and they expect us to believe that those happy actors are actually use the products in real life.
But..but we believe them when they are talking about Macs, don’t we?
Astroturfers for either company shouldn’t make it onto OSAlert. Especially when they’re as transparant as this one is. It really pisses me off that some real news stories I submit get refused while this kind of crap makes it on.
I dont think that is correct sir. Vista runs fine on 512 RAM just as OS X would. But that is definitely not recommended. Yes Vista comes with a lot of crap out of the box but I can tweak it with vLite and I can use websites like speedyvista and their knowledgebase to tweak it even more. Vista requires a lot of RAM for full performance simply because its memory management is quite aggressive in that in loads up frequently used apps and keeps it memory resident till time comes for it to be used or for it to be dumped. I was under the impression using up all the RAM was the whole point of a smart operating system. I am sure Linux does it the same way. How else would my 7.04 Ubuntu install be taking up 1.13 gig after being up for a duration for a couple of weeks?
Vista IMHO is not a terrible piece of engineering. It is quite polished and quite complete. Just all it needs is a bit of time at the beginning for it to settle down a bit what with all the indexing etc etc. I am no fanboy of any operating system. I am more of a hobbyist. I have tried the RC2 of vista and hated it. I tried Home Premium with my XPS laptop and its very nice to use. I quite like it. Just like I quite like Linux with Beryly/Compiz running. In fact I am gonna give Gentoo a twirl.
Vista does have shortcoming in terms of drivers though as their performances are subpar. That would explain the gaming issues and lack of gaming performance people are having but believe me in a year all that will be gone. I am guilty of just blaming a brand new OS release to be utterly crap etc etc but now I realize after seeing how bad OS X was when it first came out and what a refined gem it has turned out to be now…same thing with XP…uterrly crap until SP2 came out. Blame MS for screwing up the way people look at Vista but not the OS itself. It really isnt resource hungry if people take a step back and then take another look at Vista without carrying any sort of “I hate Vista” baggage or MS SUCKS sorta baggage.
“In the past 15 years I have gone from DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Linux, OpenBSD, Windows 98, Windows 2000 (a nice OS for the time), XP, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and now Vista”
Somewhat a distro-dj, so what?
“If you are a Mac user try it yourself, install boot camp and Vista and it will feel like you just added another CPU and doubled your RAM”
Try it with some real Unices and it will feel like a quadcore etc. *g*
Vice versa this is a common saying within Mac-users “try it yourself yada yada yada”.
I really don’t get it …
Mac OS X feels much faster than vista on the same hardware, ive tried it.
Mac OS X feels much faster than vista on the same hardware, ive tried it.
Given that many Mac users are stoned hippies, I’m not surprised…
I’m a Mac user, and a Windows user, and a Linux user. I can promise you, Vista is the most resource-demanding OS out currently, by a long way.
I’m talking of a real Unix, not just an operating system who bought the trademark. By the way this article is mere flame bait, so nothing to worry about. I don’t know why people keep discussing about mere flame bait …
I tried vista on my C2D iMac and it felt thateher smug and slow. It was also plagued with bugs and compatibilty problems. To be honest Vista does have a slick look but most Mac OSX apps look modern too. BTW, how did his partition crash? I have been using 4 macs for 2 years without a hitch. How did his crash in one year?
it’s a bug in bootcamp (what i’ve read)
Ok so if this is a bug in boot camp isn’t it possible that his NTFS partition could also be lost?
And guys, no windows file system is “unixy”, for it to be “unixy” it would have to have no drive letters, a single root (“/”) and symbolic links understood by all applications.
Wow. you need to read up on filesystems 101.
The OS file address space is NOTHING to do with any specific filesystem.
The Linux address space (starting at: “/”) is really just a frontend to a big hierachical, untyped database. Different entries and indexes can be stored in different files/partitions/filesystems/devices/computers/drives/etc…)
but are accessed through one unified system.
Check out the /proc directory. That is created on-demand by a kernel driver, not a static filesystem.
In fact, windows pretty closely follows this philosophy now. NTFS has some inbuilt features that can mimic the linux functionality. 1) Junctions, act like linux hard links. (OK. so no symlinks, but this isn’t usually a problem).
2) NTFS volumes can be mounted as sub-folders of other NTFS volumes. Therefore if you deal entirely in NTFS, you could mount all volumes under c: and just substitute c: for /.
Secondly, the internal representation for files (since the LVM was introduced) uses a unified address space similar (conceptually) to Linux, of the form:
disk(0)partition(1)volume(10)windowssucks.txt
I have been using 4 macs for 2 years without a hitch. How did his crash in one year?
Because there is such a thing as ‘bad hardware’. It does happen.
Less because I think windows is better (though Vista is saying the right things to me) and more because at this point after university, I can not longer avoid learning MS development tools… they are just too pervasive to ignore.
You had an unrecoverable error on OSX so you decided to use Vista? I’m thinking that dropping a few hundred on Vista is kinda pricey to just “try” it. Glad you had a copy floating around.
It’s certainly interesting to see the switchers going from one to the other and vice versa. One way or another, they all sound the same telling us how pretty and how fast thier new favorite OS is and then the great built apps are that come with it.
Edited 2007-05-07 23:58
You had an unrecoverable error on OSX so you decided to use Vista?
Yeah, he obviously enjoyed the unrecoverable error eXPerience and had a Vista of where he could get more!
My guess is he already had Vista and was using a BETA disk partitioning utility (BootCamp, as he mentions it in the article), getting ready to install it anyway. This has nothing to do with OS X directly and Apple warns the user about using BootCamp.
this post is utterly worthless unless you’re a personal friend of you and are interested in what you like. facts, i don’t see.
– especially weak was the part about security. it just says “vista is damn secure, especially ie7”. do you get paid for this?
– one other line from the PR department “Media Center is also a much nicer and richer experience than Frontrow.” — what is a reader supposed to make of this? i never have rich and nice experiences; mine are lush and pleasant.
– “The new explorer takes a bit of getting used to, but it now understands more file types such as contacts.” — it’s been long since I have been using the explorer, even on windows, but what does it mean for a file manager to “understand” file types?
– by “UNIX-y” directory structures, you probably mean “POSIX-like”. however, let me assure, the philosophy of a POSIX file system is not implemented by changing the name of “c:Local Users and Settings” (or whatever it was called) to “c:users”. you could rename that folder in previous versions anyway (pre-install with XPLite etc.). it’s a pure annoyance that windows still offers no install-time way of defining true mount points. (and that it still relies on file systems without proper symlinks)
– all that talk about 300-500$ worth of functionality now being built-in… well, you’re not telling me that a new screengrabber is worth the hundreds of bucks for a windows update!?! such software (including burning software etc.) can be found free and open under other OSes. you sure you don’t get paid for writing this?
but then, i would never spend even one minute running my mouse cursor over a dock bar. have fun with the os you prefer for some reason. a reason which is still obscure to me after reading the post.
a/v
– especially weak was the part about security. it just says “vista is damn secure, especially ie7”. do you get paid for this?
Answer your own question. How many serious Vista/IE7 security bugs have we seen? Not many. So far, it’s holding its own against the competition.
– all that talk about 300-500$ worth of functionality now being built-in… well, you’re not telling me that a new screengrabber is worth the hundreds of bucks for a windows update!?! such software (including burning software etc.) can be found free and open under other OSes.
Yeah, but poorly integrated, not very user-friendly, and poorly documented.
How many serious Vista/IE7 security bugs have we seen? Not many. So far, it’s holding its own against the competition.
Considering how long Vista has been out in the wild (and how popular or rather unpopular it is), that’s not saying very much.
I might just as well say that I am a model parent, because my kids have never killed anyone, taken drugs, stolen anything, sworn in a public place or so much as farted in bed. If you haven’t guessed where this is going already, then here you are: All of that is because I don’t have any kids.
Seriously, you Windows fanboys are going way beyond pathetic. The English language is replete with vocabulary from thousands of sources, and yet I still find myself at a loss for a word to describe it.
Considering how long Vista has been out in the wild (and how popular or rather unpopular it is), that’s not saying very much.
Hackers have had access to prerelease builds of Vista for a LONG TIME — on the order of a couple years. You mean to say that they couldn’t find a raft of serious flaws in that time? Puh-lease. The alternative to your illogic is that Microsoft actually improved the codebase substantially. Which isn’t all that surprising, given how much it improved stability/robustness with XP over Win9x.
So you (Microsoft[cheap joke]) changed the way the OS operates significantly, it took you 5 years to do that. Give the Virus writers at least 2 years[from the official release date (end of Jan 07)] to adapt to all the changes before claiming that it is perfect.
Edited 2007-05-09 22:56 UTC
This is some of the best geek prose I’ve read in a long time. ROFL. Best rebuttal EVER.
except for the usual not-up-to-speed drivers, Vista is a rock solid release. Even better than XP was.
The article author doesn’t know XP much or remember. XP had from the beginning “UNIX-y” directory structure. “Documents and Settings” are the equivalent of “home” in UNIXland. I don’t remember how they were called in the NT days. I think “Profiles” but not sure.
And “directory structure” and “common dialog box” has pretty much been there for a while.
Overall, it was a pretty good BLOG entry.
You mean “blog,” not capitalized, unless you were using it for emphasis (which was not clear at all).
He will come back to OS X. His Vista journey will only be a temporary one.
He will come back to OS X. His Vista journey will only be a temporary one.
Yeah, I’m sure that crashed OS X partition is really tempting … ;p
Yeah, because my Windows and Linux partitions have never ever crashed…
Yeah, because my Windows and Linux partitions have never ever crashed…
Since the author DEFINITELY had this flaw on Mac OS X, why take a chance on it again, as opposed to a hypothetical partition crash on an alternative OS that’s never occurred thus far? Hmmmmm … doesn’t take a genius to see that his odds are better with Linux or Vista.
Yeah, like, a clean re-install of OS X is BEYOND the capabilities of a Mac user! Oh, wait.
You understand that when you buy a Mac, the OS isn’t installed? You have to install it yourself.
*Every* Mac user is able to install the OS. That says something about the confidence Apple has in their installation procedure.
Eh? Mac OS X comes pre-installed when you purchase a new Mac from Apple. The Developer Tools are not pre-installed; you have to install them from the DVD provided if you want them.
I’d agree that many users do wipe the pre-install and do their own custom Mac OS X install, but…
Maybe it’s different now, but my Powerbook and the iBook before that came without an OS and I had to install the OS from the supplied disks.
Apple has ALWAYS shipped the hardware with the OS installed… certainly no iBook has ever shipped without an OS.
*Now, sometimes hardware ships with a NEWER version of the installed OS provided on upgrade discs – but there is always an OS of some sort installed.
Exactly, and it isn’t a headache either. Restore your user folder from backup, and boom! There’s your system exactly as you left it.
Not so for Vista users, you lost the settings in the registry, you lost your customizations, you have to change the settings of every program back to your preferred settings. For me, re-installing XP used to be a 4 hour task, if I was quick. Doing an OS X re-install is a walk in the park.
Exactly, and it isn’t a headache either. Restore your user folder from backup, and boom! There’s your system exactly as you left it.
Not so for Vista users, you lost the settings in the registry, you lost your customizations, you have to change the settings of every program back to your preferred settings.
Or you restore from backup and boom! There’s your system exactly as you left in.
Edited 2007-05-08 10:08
Yeah, like, a clean re-install of OS X is BEYOND the capabilities of a Mac user! Oh, wait.
He obviously didn’t want to repeat his traumatic OS X partition corruption experience. Can you really blame him? I don’t.
As if such things had never affected any version of Windows. Please…
As if such things had never affected any version of Windows. Please…
Sure, these things have happened with Windows. But in this guy’s case, the critical flaw wasn’t hypothetical. He experienced it. Reinstalling OS X over the bad partition is like replacing a flat tire and riding directly toward the nail that gave you the original flat tire. Which reminds me of one definition of insanity: Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
I know everyone has thought it but I will say it. “I am sure he will switch back when leopard is released”
The fact of the matter take leopard and Linux out the equation that leaves Vista to compete with XP and it does a horrible job at that. I seriously doubt if we were talking BMW’s and the new model had the performance issues of vista that the manufacturer would be able to get away with such a release.
Only MS can release poorly designed software and ask users to upgrade their entire system to run the OS at half the speed of it’s predecessor. Windows enthusiast may like Vista but from a business perspective, from a performance side vista is almost anti-productive.
We had been testing for deployment and hit some major performance issues with Vista only to hav MS say oh we know it will be corrected in SP1 this is on the office side of the house as well as windows.
Outlook 2007 performance with Exchange is horrific causing more “Outlook is trying to communicate with the server” messages than anything I have ever seen. This is not even on large mailboxes or cached mode. Also MS toutes the fact that Aero prevents the screen from locking up with whit boxes instead it just locks. You can still see aero so I guess it is all good.
What a joke I will take my SUSE, OS X, Ubuntu. Windows ios good for certification jobs that is really about is I will give it credit on ease of use for AD but openDirectory of OS X serevr is just as easy i not easier.
…I switched from brand X to brand Y today because I like it better.
Seriously, who gives a flying fsck? What is this? A gossip column?
Someone is ALWAYS switching from one product to another, usually for reasons that are not quantifiable.
It’s not news, it’s how things are.
Seriously, who gives a flying fsck? What is this? A gossip column?
Someone is ALWAYS switching from one product to another, usually for reasons that are not quantifiable.
It’s not news, it’s how things are.
Au contraire, in a product area where one product has 80-90% of the market and its manufacturers and fans are constantly going on about how it does so because it deserves it (excuse me whilst I laugh myself to death), it is very big news indeed.
I find that OSx86 on my machine is more stable than windows vista on my machine. Not only that, it boots way faster, and restarts way faster. Seriously, is there ANY reason for vista to wake my other hard drives from sleep to reboot? It’s ridiculous!
Seriously, is there ANY reason for vista to wake my other hard drives from sleep to reboot? It’s ridiculous!
Oh no! The end of the world!
It takes way longer to reboot for something that shouldn’t have to happen.
as os osx 10.4.8 I can tell:
on intel Pentium 4 @2.8GHz 1GB RAM DDR Dual Channels on Gigabyte Mobo and 74GB Raptor HDD@10,000rpm:
OSX 10.4.8 was 2-3x faster than vista on the same hardware
XP was 2x faster than OSX on the same hardware.
XP unreliable after a while online with heavy use of codecs; vista is more stable than XP handeling multimedia codecs and badly written applications
OSX was OK but offered more powerful applications to be installed.
Current OS used on this machine is RHEL5 which is faster than all of the above but with horrible dependacy issues.
The fastest and most stable OS I have ever experienced on this machine was to Sun Solaris 11.62B, but with the most horrible amount of software, 2 applications was possible to find out of 10 available to linux.
Speed is not everything I need after all. Many factors decides what I want to use.
OSX 10.4.8 was 2-3x faster than vista on the same hardware
XP was 2x faster than OSX on the same hardware.
Faster at what? I’d be interested in hearing about your benchmarking methodolgy, and I imagine others would be too.
I pretty much dozed off after the first paragraph.
I’ve been in this game for a long time and can tell you hardware and software issues will bite you in the ass in McSoft, Linux, BSD and OS X.
Piss poor planning and maintenance will also produce the same types of failures. Again, this is true for all platforms.
If the author had a spare external USB or Firewire hard drive he could have used a shareware tool like SuperDuper to image his internal drive to the external.
This is what I have restored it just to prove it works at home. We now use SuperDuper on campus for our Xservers as one of our backup and disaster recovery methods.
In the end the author did little to convince me of anything other than he had extra cash to purchase a license of Vista and a little extra time on his hands to goof around with it.
Well, time for bed, I’m tired after a long day of real-world systems administration.
Edited 2007-05-08 04:06
Oh wow. We are not worthy !o)
I have Vista on my test machine.1.8 duron with 1GB of Ram and an old 40GB PATA HDD.
Its not bad.I was kinda suprised actually.It boots slower than XP but overall it was snappier.I could see it would perform much much better on cutting edge hardware.The UAC and the sidebar are annoying though.
I haven’t used the applications the guy did in the article nor do I share his enthusiasm.More than likely when the new Mac Os comes out he will switch to that and be humming a different tune.
Which makes me think the comparison between Vista and Os X is pretty useless.If he had to trump up his story to make Vista,a brand new Os, sound so good against one that has been out for a while now, then that doesn’t say much about Vista.Should save all his drooling for when the new Mac Os comes out and then lets have a real comparison.
Yeah, I can almost see him scream: “OMG! OS X is so bad! I used beta partitioning software and it had bugs.”
CRY ME A RIVER.
I have to take exception with your comments. I have had several occasions to work on machines with Vista installed and I found the experience very frustrating. I uae OS X, Kubuntu and PC-BSD on my machines here.
My biggest complaint with both IE7 and Vista is that MS seems to have made a lot of changes just for the sake of being able to tell the world they did not copy anyone else. Never mind that the changes don’t seem to make any sense. Change can be good, but change just for the sake of change is bad.
I didn’t find Vista to be any faster than my present OS’s. It does look very nice and it seems to run smoothly, but then so do most other modern OS’s out there. Also, there seems to be a real lack of themes included with good color choices. On an older and small flat panel I found a lot of the text difficult to see let alone read. All of this can be corrected, but it did not seem to be easy to do.
Anyway, just my opinions on the subject, but with the limited experiences I have had with Vista you would have a very difficult time getting me to switch back to Windows.
I think this article is funny. As a long time Windows user and even a engineer at Microsoft on the Windows 2000 team, One hour with Vista on a new laptop at work was enough to convince me to buy a MacBook Pro (and NOT run Vista on it).
His opinion is just that, his opinion. If he likes it, well then fine.
However, his opinion should be considered null and void when he gets “free product” for having the “right opinion”. Funny that his MS buddies posted that right in the open. At least they could pay their plants in a shady back room.
At least we know there is one less blog to ever consider reading. woot!
…my precious!
He isn’t exactly known for actually using MacOSX. Now show me some high-profile switcher and we’ll talk. Otherwise anyone could just post some crazy crap about switching to MacOSX or from MacOSX and it’ll just look idiotic.
What’s with Explorer “understanding” contacts – so what? Media Center magically “finds” an Xbox? Well, you bet! That should hardly be a ‘surprise’. Now if it could work with his iPod, THAT would be a surprise. So it has a screenshot tool? Amazing!
And the REAL reasons to switch? Where are they? You don’t change platforms overnight. It’s just a boatload of nonsense.
at long last, a nice article describing Vista. We do need to dream and this article is very very helpful for this. Fairy tales…who cares?
Thank you very much for your imaginative review.
Proviso – I have not used vista (I haven’t put ‘yet’ since I do not intend to).
Yes, in a way, I agree that this is becoming too much like the C*ke and P*psi, M*D*nalds and B*rger King wars.
However, it goes deeper than that. Windows is often criticized as an experience for many, many people since it appears to be more subject to viruses, malware, etc., etc. than other operating systems.
I have struggled with Winwoes for myself and family for too long over a number of other issues as well for me to believe that switching to vista would be worth it at all.
Persistent network settings, hardware problems going down to the permission level and enumeration level for no reason than could be given or fathomed, and above all, for this ex-XP user,the frankly consistent lack of co-operation between the OS, Office and other ‘integrated’ micr*soft products, something which to me is baffling, not to mention the problems you get with a large proportion of third-party software.
There are a ton now of OSes that will serve and function for users as alternatives to vista. OS X is just one of them – but frankly I don’t care personally whether anyone continues to use xp, vista or switches from whatever back, no more than I’d care if, having moved to use purified, filtered water, others continued to gorge on swamp juice and splash about happily in it. I know what I am drinking, and I know it’s good for me. It’s all I need to understand.
Having bought a new pc with vista on it (home premium) I can honestly say that Vista is absolutely appauling – slow, buggy, apps hang or don’t load. memory eater (got 2gb of ram and it uses 1gb when first booted).
If I were you I’d stick with OSX… if you’re really desperate then I’d re-install XP – but I would leave Vista well alone.
And what does 2GB of memory cost these days? Around $99 to $150. Amortize that cost over the lifespan of your average PC (5 years). Oh, yeah, appalling. I can’t imagine paying $20 to $30 per year. /sarcasm
C’mon, most people spend more than that on lattes, for chrissakes!
Hi,
I own a white C2D 2 ghz macbook with 1 gig of ram.
I tried vista on it a couple of days ago. This article deffinately clashes with my experience.
I found it to be incredibly slow booting, system response was lethargic at best. Ram seamed to disappear into thin air (granted, os X is like that too).
This sounds a little like a sponsored article.
Give me OS X any day.
– Kevin
Thanks for warning me. I am a bit of an OS junkie so I was considering buying a Mac when Leopard comes out because I could run both operating systems but if Mac’s don’t run Vista well then I will give the Mac a miss. Vista runs well on my old desktop.
OS X is a slow operating system – it has an outdated kernel, and they’ve slapped other parts of the system on top of that outdated kernel. The GUI – Quartz, formerly Display Postscript – is sluggish compared to Vista. It is sluggishg as Quartz, it was sluggish as Display Postscript under NeXT.
I am certainly no advocate of Microsoft products, on the contrary. But claiming OS X is faster than Vista, is a joke, really.
Outdated kernel? Well, vista is built on NT which dates back to 1993 and earlier. So by that reasoning Vista has an outdated kernel too.
Mac OS X’s main problem is that applications launches too slow. But that’s not necessary a problem with Mac OS X but rather that developers doesn’t optimize their applications for it. For example firefox and thunderbird takes a while to launch but Apple’s own equivalents launches almost instantly.
For other things, like the interface, Mac OS X i faster than Vista on my macbook, even when using the latest drivers from Intel. For example transparency effects is noticable smoother on Mac OS X.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
Revenue US $44.3 billion (2006)[2]
I would rather not contribute to the slavery…
GO BSD!!!
Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 runs circles around Windows XP and Vista. Wait until 10.5 Leopard comes out! The only thing Windows XP is good for is gaming IMO.
Great Ad, well done MS.
I am happy to use any operating system and don’t have any particular preference. I have Vista and OS X installed on the same hardware. I fired up Vista yesterday and got the Blue Screen of Death three times in half and hour. Back to OS X and it’s as stable as a rock. Faster to boot than Vista too.
as windows to linux migration story.
sounds like he installed Mac OS X on a pc =D
just a joke,
but I can’t image which features vista has to offer that mac users wouldn’t know for years?
I’ve been using Apple products for over twenty years. Even after using third party disk drivers (FWB) and updating to a version of the OS not supported by those extensions have I ever had these kinds of problems. The only time I ever had data disappear on a Mac or Mac OS X system was when I was using a Mac clone in the mid 90s that had a cheap hard drive and so I’m left wondering – since Microsoft has made it’s intent known to infiltrate the blogosphere – and what is OSAlert but an OS centric blog?
I purchased my first Mac (Macbook) this year and would be hard pressed to put Vista on it. (although I have tried it on my brother’s laptop) To each his own, but the article seems rather artificial. It certainly doesn’t match my experience.
This is a serious question.
I believe it’s been established that Microsoft uses paid bloggers.
This article reads like sales-hype. Very low on details. Microsoft is always better, just because it is.
Yeah, like my Volvo D5 wouldn’t start and I mysteriously happened to have keys to an Iveco EuroCargo laying around and you know what: I don’t want to go back either …. tssss.
Windows just plain sucks, I had to go to safe mode yesterdy, just to install something. This install of windows started being annoying a few months from being reinstalled, apps. start up slow. I have a AMD XP 3200+ 2 Gig, 512 memory so that isn’t it. I still have 2000, I wouldn’t touch Vista with a 70 foot pole, I have only heard that it sucks. I use OpenSuSE 10 for non gaming, only reason I have windows is to game.
it is 2007…. MS is still shipping the vast majority of PC OSs but their market share is slowly erroding!
FACT…. Linux has not taken over the OS world…. but is NOT going away anytime soon!
FACT….. Apple computer is building some of the best PC hardware AND OSX has turned out to be a FANTASTIC (but not perfect) OS… AND their market share IS growning!
SO…. turns out… all you sniveling “one-OS-for-everyone” slugs were wrong… and now you have to deal with the fact that we all actaully have CHOICE!!!!!! We can all thank the free market for that!!!!
….watching little kids go:
“nuh uh, no its not…mines better…..”
come on people…..
I use BSD becuase it works for me….thats it…
NOT!!!
This past weekend I farted in my hands and smelled them. I didn’t like it too much, so I won’t do that again; at least not this weekend…SNNNNNNNFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF….AHHHHHHHHH
So you use the ACME OS for a year and then it develops problems with the file system. Without attempting preventative maintenance it becomes completely useless so you compare that to a new, clean install of the BORG OS and notice immediately how much faster it “seems”. The comparison at that point is completely meaningless and all the details that follow are just noise.
UPDATE: Dale Earnhart Jr. has just switched from Chevy to Peterbuilt for racing. It seems while his Chevy motor was blown up and the car just seemed to sit there stuck, he tried driving the Peterbuilt truck used to haul the racecar and it was fast in comparison. When asked he said, “I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner.”
/* “In the past 15 years I have gone from DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Linux, OpenBSD, Windows 98, Windows 2000 (a nice OS for the time), XP, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and now Vista” */
I don’t think he will be using vista for long, sounds like he has a problem selecting an OS he wants to stick with.
Edited 2007-05-11 09:04
I’m sure there are many more “Mac Crash” incidents, but people are scared to tell!
RareViolet,
http://www.vistaarticles.com