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X vs. XP.com Site Launched
Dan Pouliot writes "I've been compiling a shootout of X vs. XP for some time, but I've finally given it it's own domain xvsxp.com. Sure, I prefer Macs, but I've tried to have this site be as objective (and thorough) a shootout as possible."
There's quite a bit in here, not necessarily all new observations but a pretty solid collection of opinions that I think would seem to reflect the bulk of users on both platforms....
These comparisons are nice but for a significant number of ppl it mainly comes down to what they are comfortable with. If people don't know any better than they really aren't missing much of anything....
Funny thing is, the first thing I thought when I read "X vs XP" was think X vs XP. Slashdot is reading my mind!
Yeah, the domain name/site name isn't very well thought out. OSXvsXP or OSXvsWinXP would have been better. I assumed it was going to be about X11+Linux versus Windows XP. I didn't even think of OSX until I hit the site and couldn't find anything relevant to X11 there. Then I noticed the Jaguar logo.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Should be re-organized more fairly to compare offerings. The "Full" (as opposed to upgrade) figure should be emphasized in larger text, and Microsoft's Full pricing should precede its Upgrade pricing, since that's what compares with Apple's offering. "Family 5 pack" should be renamed "Five Licenses", and there should be a figure that shows how expensive it is to buy a box and 4 additional licenses from Microsoft. If Microsoft does not sell just licenses, then the price / box should be multiplied by 5.
OS X starts seeming much more cost-effective.
Damn... I thought this was X(11) vs. XP, not (OS)X vs. XP.
I wanna see a good X vs. X vs. XP shootout. Everybody always talks about the right tool for the job; I want to see a good analysis and adaptable scoring system that shows which is really the best for which jobs.
But, for this particular thing, my vote's for (OS)X.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Wow, a new trolling site. Congratulations, and how news worthy.
And so do you... This site is
I read through most of the site, and I found it pretty balanced and objective.
When you compare Linux to Windows XP, it seems that we are not too far from having all the features we need to be wildly successful.
But when you compare Linux to OS X, it is obvious that we are so far from the goal. Even Windows XP looks like a joke compared to the things that OS X does.
I'm glad he put together all the little tidbits of the user interface and user experience. I think the Gnome and KDE developers are paying a lot of attention as well.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
FYI - With Mac OS 10.3, X11 will be standard equipment...
As for actual content, there are a few things that I disagree with. This person said that they are a Mac fan, so I'm not too suprised at these things. Here is what I see wrong/disagree with:
Do I have a preference? I've always liked Macs, but I use PCs because they cost less (I can build a PC for much cheaper than the lowest-end-mac costs). From Win95 on, the IBM/PC has had a superior OS over OS 7/8/9. OS X changes things. It's a great OS. Would I rather have OS X or XP? I'm not quite sure. I'd probably chose OS X, all else being equal. It's done so well. I also don't like alot of the stuff XP does. If the choice was between 2k and X, I'm not sure. I would probably go with X again, but only because of the Unix core; wihtout that it'd be 2k. I use 2k and love it. It's a very good interface.
Of course, this is just another one of those KDE vs. Gnome (KDE for me), PC vs. Mac (PC for me), DVD-R vs. DVD+R (whichever one someone wants to give me ;), Linux vs. BSD (Linux for me) type things. It has no answer.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Am I the only one that sees the irony in the name of the site?
I almost died laughing.
God, this troll is getting so old I'm surprised it doesn't include a jibe about the system hanging on a mousedown event....
The numlock is a software thing. The mac ignores the state of numlock. I imagine the numlock is only there for people using Virtual PC or Linux/NetBSD.
And the reason the menu bar is at the top is easy - that way you can close and open documents without having to restart the application again. Mozilla on Windows means if I close the browser, I have to restart it. The alternative is the convoluted window inside a window technique Microsoft uses everywhere, such as in Word. The menu bar doesn't need to be repeated for every open document.
Now, if the application is not really document oriented (not all applications are) or if it has features that don't require interaction with the document, that's what a dock menu is for. I don't know if you're familiar with dock menus, but nice authors make frequent commands accessible from a menu attached to the application's icon in the dock.
Mail lets you check mail straight from the dock, Project Builder let's me make a new component or project from the dock, iTunes not only shows me what's playing, but it lets me pause, stop skip, or go back from the dock. Granted, those are all Apple applications, but Watson lets me check the weather, stocks, news, versiontracker, etc. all from the dock menu. Chimera - correction, Camino (kick ass browser!) lets me call up bookmarks from the dock.
Not all applications are taking advantage of them, but, the support for it is there, and good programmers will use it those situations for a non-document based applications major functions.
So, since dock menus reasonably address your need to have the menu bar always present and in the process removes the unnecessary repetition of menubars, I'd argue the single menubar approach is superior.
Besides, with overlapping windows, most of your menubars will be obscured (at least somewhat) anyway, thereby forcing you to click on it to reveal the rest. The dock is always in the foreground, so dock menus are always accessible.
sheesh...what a loser.
First I will steal a comment from a Macslash poster and say that each of the different categories should be weighted differently. The ease with which the average user can network two computers should carry more weight than out of the box chat capabilities.
Second I am so absurdly tired of anyone who mentions anything to do with one button mice. If you are reading slashdot you are probably a computer geek. As a computer geek you more than likely know lots of stories about that idiot that can't use their computer. That is why there are one button mice! Most people are the idiot that can't use a computer. I don't think I have ever used an out of the box mouse from any PC manufacturer simply because I spend enough time using the computer that I really appreciate a mouse that is comfortable. Maybe Apple could be a little smarter and have a check box on the Apple Store site that allows a user to select their choice of mice.
Sorry, you're wrong. Biege G3 Desktops can be picked up now for under $100. So for the purpose of the comparison, the differences in cost of the hardware is negligible.
Wow.. congratulations on a wonderful troll.. I was *THIS CLOSE* to actually replying to it with an argument.
Yea, it's only in beta, but I've never had many problems. OS X can run OSX apps, OS 9 apps, and X11 apps. XP can run. . .Xp apps.
This is because Windows has been historically extremely vulnerable to viruses that take over the boot sequence and steal your login.
This is not true at all. Windows is no more vulnerable to viruses that take over the boot sequence to any other OS and login and/or password hijacking programs have never been common on Windows. The Ctrl+Alt+Del for login has been in NT from the start (ca. 1993) and is simply part of the secure login facilities that NT was *designed* with.
"General Interface"
XP routinely fails to notify the user if the system is busy. It doesn't give ANY feedback when launching Internet Explorer.
I've not seen a system for some time where IE startup wasn't so fast that feedback is required - but that's not the point. XP does give feedback - when the system is processing in the background, the cursor changes from an arrow to an arrow+hourglass icon. This includes (or should) the time while programs are loading and not displaying anything to screen. Unfortunately I don't have an XP box handy to test this with right now, but it certainly happens with Win2k and was also present in Win95.
Something else that isn't commented on is how often applications block (the beachball), particularly the Finder. It happens *way* too much and on tasks that really should be quick or multithreaded.
Whenever a window accidentally gets moved completely off the screen, the Size and Move keyboard commands can be invoked, and the window can be moved back onto the screen via the keyboard
I can't see how a window could be "accidentally" moved completely off screen. I can see how it could be done programmatically by the application, or deliberately by the user - but not "accidentally".
Dragging and dropping content from one app to another involves dragging the app down to the Task bar onto the button that corresponds to the window you want to drag into (even though the cursor switches to the Cant-Do-That icon), then finally drag the item back up the screen to the location you want to drop it. Not impossible, but not too practical either.
Cumbersome it may be, but it is infinitely better than the complete lack of equivalent functionality in OS X.
Corners are better used: the Start Menu is always placed in a corner, which makes it a very easy target.
This is only true if the taskbar hasn't been made larger than the default. If it is, the Start button moves out of the corner (what it should do is expand to fill the entire space).
Dragging test between windows is something that it is up to the application to implement on both OSes. Notepad is not a good example to use because it isn't really an app, it's just a text-control widget wrapped in a window.
"Drag & Drop"
More than one PC user has mentioned that they prefer cut and paste. And on Windows XP I prefer cut and paste too, not because cut and paste is an inherently superior method, but rather because XP's poor support for drag and drop has trained me avoid it altogether. But on Mac OS X?which has more thorough support for drag and drop?I use each method interchangeably depending on what best suits the current situation.
I prefer to use Cut & Paste for file management as well, and I'd prefer it in OS X to drag & drop. Unfortunately, the Cut & Paste functionality in OS X for this purpose is inadequate.
"Navigating the file system".
IMHO OS X loses out here completely because it doesn't feature the classic directory tree + file list style of GUI file management which I find to be the easiest and most efficient to use (when partnered with good keyboard shortcuts).
"Dock vs Taskbar"
One of the Dock's most impressive features is it's advanced real time application feedback.
Visually impressive it may be - however, functionally it's fairly pointless. Apart from the *massive* overhead involved (a busy minimised terminal window will drag the entire GUI to a crawl) the utility is fairly limited - for preview icons to be useful, they have to be huge, chewing up yet more valuable screen real estate in a GUI feature that already wastes more than it should.
"Keyboard application switching".
He forgot that Cmd+` will cycle between the windows of the foreground app. Also, a big weakness in OS X's keyboard switching IMHO is an inability to quickly & easily move to an arbitrary window (particularly without having all the app's other windows obscure the rest of the screen).
"Keyboard Shortcuts".
Some of the keyboard shortcuts are just flat out wrong. The standard shortcut for "new file" on Windows is Ctrl+N. Win+E is a shortcut for launching explorer. Although he rightfully picks up that there is *still* no shortcut key for creating a new folder in Explorer. The shortcut for "opening a file" in Explorer is Enter. Using Alt+F,O is the long way to do it. He also does not say anything about a shortcut that is seriously lacking in OS X - one to quickly go straight to the Desktop. This area is a big win for Windows IMHO, since it's possible to do anything from the keyboard in Windows quickly and easily with no extra configuration necessary.
It's also troubling that XP relies on the Windows key for system shortcuts, since not all keyboards have a Windows key (my IBM ThinkPad lacks a Windows key).
No ! This is exactly what it *should* do. All the keyboard shortcuts should be Win+ or have a programmable modifier key. Using the control key for shortcuts was a Really Bad Idea.
"Networking".
The network browser in OS X is really bad - although not as bad as the nightmare that was Chooser. You can't access anything on a remote machine without mounting it's share, searching for or connecting to specific machines is clumsy and opening up the "Connect to Server" dialog BLOCKS THE WHOLE FINDER.
Connecting to remote machines in Windows is vastly superior. You can navigate directly to machines, the shares they have and manipulate things in those shares - even launch programs - all without having to map or mount the share.
"Power User".
I'm not quite sure why "screen capture" is in this section - I don't think I've ever wanted to take a screen capture in my life, let alone cared about how flexible the builtin tools to do it are.
"Booting from alternate drives". This is a hardware issue and has _nothing_ to do with Windows or OS X. Just as there are PCs that require fidding in the BIOS to boot from anything except the first hard disk, there are also machine that let you hit a key on bootup to get a nice little menu of all the bootable devices the system knows about. It really doesn't belong in this comparison.
"Misc"
XP Home Edition doesn't support multi-processors.
That's because the audience it's targetted at won't be running machines with multiple CPUs.
You can only use your numeric keypad in XP when num lock is turned on, even with full size keyboards.
This has already been commented on, but it bears repeating. This is *precisely* how the system should operate. Not only that, but most PCs default to having the Num Lock on at boot - and if that isn't enough, Windows will remember the state the Num Lock key was in the last time you logged out.
Apart from these errors, which seem mostly to do with a lack of experience with Windows, lack of knowledge about it's history, and/or simple personal preferences, the site seems ok.
OS X might be a great platform, but Mac Hardware sucks my nuts. Its expensive, and slow compared to pc hardware. And Apple can go screw themselves because applecare sucks even more.
Is OS X usable on a beige g3 desktop? 266MHz with 32 Megs, you're kidding, right?
Apple hardware costs significantly more, unless you just happen to stuff a PC full of the precise features that Macs come with, and you still come out with a significant price difference. Not to mention the OEM pricing that anyone other than Mac zealots can easily find, and XP Pro comes down to $135 for a full license ($85 for XP Home).
...I'm running my web server, mail server, FTP server, QuickTime Streaming Server, internet sharing, file sharing, and name server on MacOS X 10.2 on a beige G3. When I had my main machine out at a client's site, I used the beige G3 for all of my daily use for a couple of weeks. It worked fine.
I will admit that I've upgraded the memory to 320 megs or so. But even on a 300 mhz G3, running with a Rage Pro chip, things work surprisingly smoothly and well. I wouldn't do all my development on that machine if I had a choice, but for day-to-day usage it's perfectly fine.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Sorry, that's bullshit. There is no way in hell any G3 is under $100.
I could take you to task on many of your points, but this one is grossly inaccurate, and something has to be said.
I don't know how you could use OS X for more than a week and still think dock feedback is mostly pointless. Let's take the prime example: Mail. Even if my Mail icon is tiny, it still tells me if I have unread messages by displaying that tiny red star on Mail's "stamp" icon. If I have magnification turned on, I can see how many unread messages have just come in. If you can't see how that is useful, then there's no reason to waste precious CPU cycles explaining it.
Besides Mail, there are dozens of other apps that provide Dock feedback (CPU Monitor comes to mind), save me keystrokes and reduce the app's interference with my workflow to a single glance rather than a click, a glance, and another click to go back to where I was. Print Center shows me when my print jobs are going, and when they're finished, or if they've encountered any errors. It even shows me how many pages still have to print! And I don't have to open a single window to get that information. There are dozens and dozens more examples where these came from. And none of these examples require the icons to be huge. You can get one level of usefulness with the dock minimized, and another level if you choose to magnify it, which can be done with a simple flick of the wrist.
How can you possibly support that the dock feedback feature isn't useful with all that evidence?
I ran into this XP "feature" yesterday on a co-worker's XP machine. Running an application, closed the (last) window thinking I could then create another. Silly me, closing the (last) window exits the app and I have to poke around and relaunch it.
Not very intuitive or convenient. Especially since it depends on me keeping track of how many windows I have open in the application and knowing that the last one acts differently than the others.
To add insult to injury, my coworker had also managed to remove the app from the START menu -- where I though all apps live on an XP machine -- and I basically couldn't find the stupid application to launch it again. So much for that supposed advantage over MacOS X. (I'm not bitter, mind you...)
To quit an application, you use the Application's "Quit" menu-item.
Why is this confusing?
Maybe it's annoying if you have grown used to the Windows behaviour where you are forced to use the Window-close control since there is no uniform keyboard shortcut for quitting an application.
On Macs, there is: Cmd-Q
Perhaps this is also related to another key difference: on a Mac, there is (usually) only one instance of an application running. Double-click on a document belonging to that application and it just opens another window. On Windows, you never know if it will start a new instance of the application or not.
Perhaps you should fire up Sherlock and head over to Ebay. I've seen several Beige G3s sell there for under $100 in the past weeks. $150 will get you a nice little box capable of running a file/web/mail server system or even playing some less demanding 3D games (with an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI installed of course).
There's a retail site near me that sells used G3 boxes pretty cheap, like $200 for a 333Mhz mini tower.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The reason is that for most users, a one button mouse is better. Unless you use context menus, you're better off with a single mouse button. If you're new or unused to computers, you're better off with a single button.
But if a two button mouse is offered, newbies and novices will consider it an "upgrade" without really considering it. After all, they might use it someday, right?
The current approach of including a single button mouse and working with any off-the-shelf two (or more) button mouse is the best one, I think.
(Although I don't really think this applies to a scroll wheel. Perhaps the next revision to the Apple mouse -- or keyboard, they're much more useful there -- will have one.
(1) Column View is the best feature for file browsing not available on any other OS.
This is good as an option in Finder, but I think it's a mess in open and save dialogues. It reminds me of Greg's Browser from OS 7 or something; it was a great finder alternative for power browsing multiple large directories. But in the open/save dialogues it is sheer agony, especially since there seems to be not much rhyme or reason as to how things jump around. I tried Default Folder X for a while but it didn't help much; it had a few options that made things easier but I just feel like columns are kludgy when you're opening or saving.
Funny joke..W95 better than Mac OS 7,8,9.
You're obviously not familiar with the Mac before now. Windoze has always lacked features compared w/ Mac OS. Windoze has always been a cheap imitation of Mac OS. W95 might have compared w/ Mac OS 89.
Speed of rendering on local machine: XP wins.
Speed of rendering on remote machine: X Windows wins.
Other things: you'd be comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended).
Hehe, kinda reminds me of my experience with the dreadful Amiga GUI. I never understood why I had to use the 2nd mouse button for selecting menu items. All the first button seemed to do was allow me to move the entire screen content offscreen and let me look at a solid background color...
Most /. users are geeks. And any geek worth thier salt will have a favourite mouse that they use on every machine, so they will be buying new mice anyway.
I have the same mouse on all my Macs, at home and work, and have for several years - an MS Intellimouse Explorer.
Few PCs come with my mouse of choice (without an extra charge), so I would have to buy one with a new PC or a Mac regardless.
So WHAT, I ask, is the problem here?
Do you think that an Intellimouse can't do the same things on a Mac? I have 6 or 7 custom app setups for different behaviors, and since I write left-handed, I can use the Wacom in one hand and the 5 button mouse in the other, and do nearly all my Photoshopping without touching the keys.
So I ask again, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
jason wiley - too lazy to log in.
I am sooooo sick of hearing about the 1 button Apple mouse. If people prefer a 2 button mouse, go ahead and plug in a 2 button mouse. I could sympatize the complaints if the OS did not support it but this is not the case. I just bought my wife a Ghz 15" TiBook and she was bitching about the track pad and the one button so I got her this and she is perfectly happy.
afantee nice posts. this guy is obviously ignorant like so many others who've been forced to use windows for so many years. it's hard, if not impossible, for them to accept the fact that there's something different (and in so many ways better)...which is perverse to me because windows is so riddled with flaws that its users are constantly grumbling about it...unlike Mac users...especially Jaguar!
they're just bitter...and afraid of being left behind...funny how the times have changed...
-- Dan Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ