OS Performance — Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 9.10

BeckySharp writes "With the nearly simultaneous release of Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' (available right now) and Microsoft's Windows 7 (available Oct. 22), you get the inevitable debate: Which is the better operating system, Windows 7 or Snow Leopard? To help determine that, Computerworld's Preston Gralla put both operating systems through their paces, selected categories for a head-to-head competition, and then chose a winner in each category." Relatedly, Phoronix has posted Snow Leopard vs. Ubuntu 9.10 benchmarks. They ran tests from ray tracing to 3D gaming to compilation. Their tests show Ubuntu 9.10 winning a number of the tests, but there are some slowdowns in performance and still multiple wins in favor of Snow Leopard, so the end result is mixed.

Comments

Dock/Taskbar design

[alain94040]

The most thoughtful article I read that truly explains what the technical tradeoffs are with dock/taskbar design: here.

On a similar topic, if you want to work on the home page GUI for Android, there is an on-going project as well.

The good news for consumers is that both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are great-looking OS. Computerworld is just wrong to give a point to Apple on price :-)

Re:Dock/Taskbar design

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the price of either is a matter of what you already have :).

If I have the immediate previous version of the software:
Leopard-->Snow Leopard: $30.
Vista Home Premium-->Win7 Home Premium: $120 (if you want Ultimate, then $220)

If I have the second-previous version:
Tiger-->Snow Leopard: $170 (bundled with a couple other items)
XP-->Win7 Home Premium: $120 (Ultimate is $220)

Even earlier version (rare):
Mac: you're SOL
Windows: $200 ($320 for Ultimate)

If I have a very recent computer:
Leopard-->Snow Leopard: $10
Vista (any) --> Win7 (same): $0

If you're getting a new computer:
Generally bundled; pricing delta is defined by hardware prices of Apple vs any OEM that will bundle Windows, which in turn depends on your precise needs.

If your current computer is anything other than a Mac: you need to buy a Mac to be legal, or do hackintosh (at which point you could throw in that you can get illegal copies of either OS free, but maybe your personal ethics permit a breach of law in one case but not the other).

Re:Dock/Taskbar design

[Mononoke]

Don't forget that Apple charges for it's service packs

No. They. Don't.

Re:Dock/Taskbar design

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there is this shiny bit:

  The common response is to use the notification area (often incorrectly called the "system tray") to provide ready access to these running-but-windowless applications.

Orly? You DO know that the it was called the "system tray" up until Windows XP, don't you? It was even instantiated by a process called systray.exe. Even MSDN is littered with its own references to it being the "system tray", like here.

That's wrong.

Re:Dock/Taskbar design

[shutdown -p now]

Win7 actually runs fine on 1Gb - like Vista, it will use the RAM that is there, but unlike Vista, it doesn't insist on it.

Anyway, this is pretty irrelevant here, because the comparison wasn't about performance at all (despite the title of the Slashdot summary). It was just one person's very subjective opinions on certain aspects of OS X and Win7, without any attempt to quantify. There's not a single objective measure in the whole review.

Re:Dock/Taskbar design

[DannyO152]

I would add that past costs, having been paid, are irrelevant. No matter whether you sunk $1,000, $500, $5,000 into that system, it will cost you $29 to upgrade that Mac and $100 to upgrade that Windows system. Let us not forget that while one may find Wintel pcs that have a lower price than a Mac, one can also find ones that are more expensive. Let's assume that there's an implicit basic satisfaction with the system's value if its owner is considering an upgrade.

That said, here's my bone to pick. I've been using Photoshop CS2 on Leopard. My $29 upgrade will mean either no Photoshop or another few hundred bucks additional cost in order to get CS4. Only Thursday did we start to get reports of incompatible software and, of course, all the reviews overlooked real world considerations in favor of revealing the same features we could have seen on Apple's web site. Nothing was really said with regards to the real reason we run operating systems: so we get stuff done with the software that runs on top. I don't care whether OS X boots faster than Win7 - I've made my choices. But if an upgrade means purchase of hardware or software, than that is a lot more important to me than the interface of QuickTimeX.

Re:Dock/Taskbar design

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mac Pro is a Xeon. Your newegg config is almost certainly a Core i7. Nehalem is an architecture codename, not a single product. Intel prices accordingly.

Nice troll though.

Performance, where?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article linked to in the quote block is a terrible little summary of Snow Leopard and Windows 7, split unnecessarily over 5 pages, with nary a benchmark to be seen. Most of the comparisons are subjective, vague, and really not very useful to anyone.

Re:30? Try 130.

[bonch]

Its only 30 if you forked out 130 for the last one, so you could really call it 160.

Apple has confirmed that you can install the $30 upgrade version on top of Tiger.

Re:30? Try 130.

[Anonymous Coward]

At an Apple store I asked if the $30 dollar was an upgrade or a full install disk. I was told it was a full install disk and no copy of leopard or even tiger was required. I installed it successfully on my sisters computer AFTER wiping it clean (Read: no previously purchased OS installed.) It is a full blown OS for only $30 (not an upgrade disk.) They do sell a more expensive copy that comes bundled with iLife and iWork.