Mac, PC(Windows), or Linux/Unix

[Opher]

Everyday i get more and more fed up with Windows. Today it "updated" and windows stoped booting.

So this got me thinking what do all of you use?

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Mac for over 20 years. Never had any problem, never had to worry about viruses, etc.

Yes, they are a bit more expensive. Nothing compared to the time most people seem to spend trying to make their Windows machines work the way they're supposed too.

 

[Overread]

Depends - they are all rather different tools.

Mac - good for specifics and generally considered the market leader for graphics, CGI and general media work. Of course they are strong machines in their own right, but the sofware range for them is more limited - though there are windows emulators out there to use if one so desires. The bonus of all the components being inhouse made does give the advantage that all the bits are fully comptable

Linux/Unix - Free and strong, but its not for easy street. This is the sort of operating system for people who really understand computers and require specific controls as well as not being afriad to work around things and such to get things to work. Its great for the average geek (which is why they like it so much) but not best suited to your average home owner user

PC - good generalist with the widest range of software out there. Of course we all know the limitations of PCs, but they have their strengths too, easy compataibility with most other systems (its widly used), the wider software range and options from free to commercail as well as a nice big collection of games as well

For me its Windows - games ar a hobby of mine and I am used to the interface (at least till they change it......) Plus most of my software experience is in windows. I am not geeky enough to bother with Linux and MAC would require me to spend a lot rebuilding my games collection and fiddling around with emulators and such

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Depends - they are all rather different tools.

Mac - good for specifics and generally considered the market leader for graphics, CGI and general media work. Of course they are strong machines in their own right, but the sofware range for them is more limited - though there are windows emulators out there to use if one so desires. The bonus of all the components being inhouse made does give the advantage that all the bits are fully comptable

Linux/Unix - Free and strong, but its not for easy street. This is the sort of operating system for people who really understand computers and require specific controls as well as not being afriad to work around things and such to get things to work. Its great for the average geek (which is why they like it so much) but not best suited to your average home owner user

PC - good generalist with the widest range of software out there. Of course we all know the limitations of PCs, but they have their strengths too, easy compataibility with most other systems (its widly used), the wider software range and options from free to commercail as well as a nice big collection of games as well

For me its Windows - games ar a hobby of mine and I am used to the interface (at least till they change it......) Plus most of my software experience is in windows. I am not geeky enough to bother with Linux and MAC would require me to spend a lot rebuilding my games collection and fiddling around with emulators and such

:thumbup: This has to be be the fairest assessment I've seen in a long time. but d o you know that you can run Windows on a Mac?

 

[mariusz]

i use mac and am happy with. 10 years no virus!

 

[Overread]

:thumbup: This has to be be the fairest assessment I've seen in a long time. but d o you know that you can run Windows on a Mac?

but then why shell out on the MAC only to then use Windows? Granted its good for a dominant MAC user who needs to dip into windows from time to time, but if your using a lot of windows based software it would be easier to just use a straight windows PC and reduce the number of possible conflict problems.

 

[Dagwood56]

I use windows. I never had issues with old 3.1, hated win 95!! Liked WindowsME, Loved Windows XP -don't care to talk about Vista! Lets say it falls below win95 on my dislike meter! As for those windows updates, I have had numerous issues with them since using Vista, in fact a brand new PC and it crashed numerous times between October and May! I realized it always happened after a large update -so, I just turned updates off! Screw 'em!! They take hours to download, slow things down while they download, and so far, I have had no more problems [tap wood] since the last crash in mid-May.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

No. There are no conflict problems and you can have the best of both worlds.

Never surf the internet from Windows and worry about all the nasty stuff floating around that space...

Play all the Windows based games you want.

Stable environment from Mac.

... and probably something else from Windows.


To be honest I could not care less what you or anyone else uses. I do not get brownie points or Mac$ for pushing Mac. Quite the opposite.

The more people use Macs the more idiots we will have wanting to write viruses and other cr*p for us.

In my house there were 5 Macs to every Windows machine because my wife learned computing on DOS. When she finally got comfortable enough with Mac (not that long ago ) we got rid of Bill's machines. The only one we still have is the lone one from her company. And she only uses it for company specific applications.

My son in law is a Windows freak, hates Macs but he bought the last one I sold anyway. Supposedly for his son. The last time I was at heir house I noticed it wasn't in the kid's room so I looked around. Found it in the computer lab :lmao:

 

[Dwig]

Overread's assesment is rather good, but you have to consider "Mac" and "Windows" in 21st century terms.

The MacOS and Windows were both problematic. Neither were great and its good that they are both dead and buried. Apple's replacement for the MacOS, like MS's replacement for Windows, are a different matter.

MacOSX is not the MacOS. It is a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing version of Unix. Today's Windows are really WindowsNT, which is a fork from the old IBM/MS OS2 project to create an Intel native UNIX clone.

At the ripe old age of 40, UNIX has proved to the most functional approach to OS design at this point in the early evolution of personal computers. All choices at the present are either UNIX, UNIX hiding under a sexy UI (MacOSX), or extremely UNIX-like under the hood (WindowsNT family including XP/NTv5.1, Vista/NTv6, or 7/NTv7).

Personally, I prefer the WindowsNT family (except Vista). It shields me less from its internal guts making it easier for me to manage its guts.

 

[JamesMason]

once you go mac, you never go back.

was once a hardcore pc user, used a mac for 2 hours and have never gone back since

 

[clarinetJWD]

Overread's assesment is rather good, but you have to consider "Mac" and "Windows" in 21st century terms.

The MacOS and Windows were both problematic. Neither were great and its good that they are both dead and buried. Apple's replacement for the MacOS, like MS's replacement for Windows, are a different matter.

MacOSX is not the MacOS. It is a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing version of Unix. Today's Windows are really WindowsNT, which is a fork from the old IBM/MS OS2 project to create an Intel native UNIX clone.

At the ripe old age of 40, UNIX has proved to the most functional approach to OS design at this point in the early evolution of personal computers. All choices at the present are either UNIX, UNIX hiding under a sexy UI (MacOSX), or extremely UNIX-like under the hood (WindowsNT family including XP/NTv5.1, Vista/NTv6, or 7/NTv7).

Personally, I prefer the WindowsNT family (except Vista). It shields me less from its internal guts making it easier for me to manage its guts.

Not to be pedantic, but Windows 7 is actually NT version 6.1... Aside from that, I agree with your last sentence 92.31%. (Except "except Vista". Vista had a bad launch, and a bad first impression, but since SP1 has been absolutely fine.)

That being said, before you make any decisions, make sure you try Windows 7. I've seen the phrase "It just works" more times in reviews of 7 than I ever have with MacOS. It's easily the best OS MS has ever made...

At this point, I firmly believe that the choice of Mac vs PC is purely aesthetic. Which do you like to use more? Both are very stable, but occasionally crash, both are very secure (See chart below. This is number of malware infected machines, % of 1000. The latest 64 bit Vista fares extremely well at ~2%, and Windows 7 is even lower, so I'd call security pretty equal at this point too), both have slick modern GUI's.

As for the "Ignoring updates, problem solved!" philosophy... Not good at all! Updates (especially security updates) are very important, and should not be ignored, no matter what OS you use.

EDIT:

once you go mac, you never go back.

was once a hardcore pc user, used a mac for 2 hours and have never gone back since

Funny...was once a big Mac fan, but switched to PC for the games, all the while wishing I still had a Mac. This was Mac version Old vs Windows 95. Years later, I used one again (OS 10.4), and realized I really, really didn't want one. One is not better than the other anymore, just a better match depending on your workflow. (Also, did Apple finally remove the shift and caps lock keys to make the keyboard more streamlined and minimalistic? )

 

[itznfb]

Windows for over 20 years. Never had any problem, never had to worry about viruses, etc.

 

[Opher]

Windows for over 20 years. Never had any problem, never had to worry about viruses, etc.

Congrats on not having problems with windows. People like you are far and few between(or you are still using 3.1).



I personal use Ubuntu and change it to fit my needs. Sadly it has its limitations to. For the software that will not run i have windows.

To all you Mac heads
I would love to work on a mack but there are two things stoping me. I like to mess with a computers hardware and there is the price. Well maybe tree, I find there UI counter intuitive. It is just to hard to get around.

 

[musicaleCA]

Liked WindowsME

Just what have you been smoking? WindowsME wasn't an operating system...it was a computer virus that you paid for. I can't count the number of hours I spent cleaning up it's sh**.

I have a modest amount of love for my Mac. It treats me well save for the very occasional kernel panic. Such things are very much the exception, and usually only come after I've been farking around with the guts of the OS. Not something that just crops up with no apparent reason.

Dwig's assessment of UNIX could not be any better. UNIX is just plain fantastic. When I bought my current Mac, MS didn't have Vista out yet, and it wasn't looking good at all either. OSX was the only reasonable choice for me, since I didn't want to bother with Linux distros, and Windows wasn't functional (I was going to be a university student in a matter of months; I simply didn't have time to make my computer work). Nor was the Windows GUI (and for me, it is still very much counter-intuitive). The NeXTSTEP-like operating environment of OSX, with inspectors and dock, is much more intuitive for me.

However, I very much hate some things in OSX and Apple's design. They have a penchant to lock you out of parts of the OS that normally you'd have access to. Notably, I can't spoof my MAC address under OS X 10.5.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

To all you Mac heads
I would love to work on a mack but there are two things stoping me. I like to mess with a computers hardware and there is the price. Well maybe tree, I find there UI counter intuitive. It is just to hard to get around.

I drive a Mack and compute on a Mac

Now, I'm no hardware geek but why couldn't you mess with Mac hardware?

The price, I agree. And it is what keeps most away people from them. Thank god I write my computers off so I don't mind the extra cost. Plus I see it as insurance. I couldn't tell you when the last crash I had was. It's been so very long that I don't remember.

If the UI is counter intuitive I imagine it is only because you are so used to Windows. Same problem my wife had. From seeing people new to computers deal the two, it seems to me most have an easier time learning on a Mac.

One problem I will grant you is that, with fewer of us Mac users around, when you do have a problem it is a lot easier to find help when you run a Windows machine.