Looking at platforms objectively (was Re: [X4U] Re: Lack of sleep)

[Zane H. Healy]

At 7:13 PM -0700 9/1/05, Ted Burton wrote:
>At 5:34 PM -0700 on 9/1/05, Zane H. Healy spoke about Re: [X4U] Re: 
>Lack of sleep thusly:
>
>>Overall, Mac OSX has the *worst* performance of any "Unix varient" 
>>that I've used for any amount of time, and that includes Linux 
>>(shoot it even makes WinXP look good).
>
>No one's keeping you from moving to Windows. If it's really better 
>in your eyes, you should be using it. Lebe wohl.

Some people are capable of recognizing a platforms strengths and 
weaknesses.  I might hate Windows, in part because I hate Microsoft 
over their handling of OS/2, but I'm willing to admit that Win2k, 
WinXP, and Win2003 all work quite well, and that they have their uses.

There is more to deciding which computer to use than just 
performance.  You have to consider stability, security, reliability, 
applications, and even previous investment in the platform.

Performance
WinXP wins over Mac OS X, BUT looses to just about anything else 
besides Linux.  The best OS I've ever seen performance wise is IRIX, 
it is simply astounding what an SGI system running IRIX can do, even 
with a very slow CPU, and hardly any RAM by todays standards. 
Totally bogged down, it's still nice and "smooth".  Along these 
lines, I'd really like to see how Mac OS X would perform if Apple 
would ditch the Mach Microkernel and run on top of a Monolithic 
kernel.

Stability
In all honesty, Mac OS X and WinXP are very close.  A lot depends on 
how the system is configured, the hardware, and what you run on it. 
Personally, I prefer the stability of OS's such as OpenVMS or Solaris.

Security
Mac OS X wins hands down, but it's not secure enough for me (System 7 
through Mac OS 9 were), that's why my important data resides on an 
OpenVMS system.  Security issues are why I do my best to stay away 
from WinXP.

Reliability
I'm going to give this to Mac OS X, but WinXP is fairly close.  Over 
the years I've had reliability issues with both.  Again, both loose 
to OS's such as OpenVMS or Solaris.

Applications
Neither platform wins.  Some apps I use are available on one platform 
and not the other.  Mac OS X has the most of what I need though. 
Virtual PC could run all except for one of the WinXP apps I need, but 
it is to unreliable.

Previous Investment
I've been using computers for 23 years now.  I started using Mac's in 
January of '92 (within a week of when I started using Linux).  I 
bought my first Mac 10 years ago, and have invested thousands of 
dollars over the years just on software for my Mac's.  I would have 
to re-buy all of the software I use.  This is probably one of the 
biggest factors for most people.  Just for the software I use 
regularly, this would amount to more than the cost of a computer.

For me one advantage to Mac OS X is that I don't *have* to have a 
UNIX-based computer running at the same time, pretty much all of the 
UNIX tools I need run just fine on Mac OS X.  Of course, I do still 
have an SGI O2/R12k-270, and a Sun Ultra 60/2360 sitting alongside 
the G5 2x2.

			Zane



-- 
--
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
|                                  | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |