I discovered the same thing with USB cards the other day. I bought a PCI USB card from "PC Ally" which was $30 less than the "Mac Ally" one. After installing Apple's USB drivers into OS9, the card worked perfectly!
Windows 95OSR2 will run USB if you apply the USB supplement. I can't seem to find it anywhere on the web, but it is on some Win95 CD's in the usbsup folder (though I think they have to read "with USB support" on the disc.
As for Windows 98, if you are not using 98SE I would seriously try that. There was a lot of work on the driver subsystem under 98SE (though mostly WDM support), and it might fix your problem. Most of the people I know who use Windows on the lower end use 98SE and have no problems.
2K and XP will also run on lower end CPUs (166Mhz and higher I think), but you need a lot of RAM to run them at a proper speed. The minimum amount of RAM supported by 2K is 32MB, but it runs really badly. If you have 64MB of RAM or more you should be fine. Under XP, you also can go 'Control Panels->System->Advanced->Settings (under the Performance groupbox) and choose 'Adjust for Best Performance'. This will turn off most of the visual effects and not use the theme service.
I hope this helps. Personally, I find Me too bloated and the crippled DOS makes it just unusable for many tasks.
It's very hard to tell a company they need to upgrade their office suite when nothing has changed but the interface and the clip-arts.
Oh come on, look at all the great features that newer versions of Office offer! What company wouldn't be interested in powerful advances like Smart Tags and MSN Messenger integration! Well worth the $500 if you ask me...
I too was a little dissapointed in WC3's graphics. After seeing the way Battle Realms looked, and the fact that it was still smooth on a P166, made me think WC3 was going to be so much more. However, I don't find the gameplay of Battle Realms to be even close to as good as Warcraft 3's.
I have a Voodoo 3 and WC3 runs pretty well on my system. However, I am also running the AmigaMerlin drivers instead of the standard 3dfx ones, and I have it clocked up to 180Mhz. You might want to try some of the options under your 3dfx tools or get one of those 3dfx hacking/overclocking programs (you can get them from VoodooFiles as well).
If it is just a performance thing, it might just be RAM (WC3 seems to need a lot of it). I found that performance improved greatly under XP when I shut off a bunch of extra services.
In the end, it means you download a DiVX.avi file and half the time it doesn't seem to play, at least until you have done all the web searching to get all the codecs. I barely have time to watch clips much less hunt for codecs.
There are some really good codec packs from DivX Digest. I have had a lot of success with these packs, I think right now I am running the BgBop Codec Pack and almost everything I run into has opened without any problems.
DOS is a real mode operating system. The features you describe are all available in protected mode, which could not be used without sacrificing the ability to run on 286 and lower processors. It would be a major pain to implement them in real mode. DOS was not denying you of anything, it simply was not designed to be used in that manner. That's what Windows was for...
I had also done the sysoc.inf trick and it worked...for a while. After visiting Windows update, it seems that messenger starts up again, and even worse I can't close it while Outlook Express is running (it gives some lame message about shared components). Also, if you kill the process from task manager, it just respawns after about a minute.
I agree. Many games have just become too complex as far as controls and gameplay go. I really hate to get into a game and find that there are around 50 keys that I am supposed to memorize, and failing to remember just one at a critical moment gets you rocked. I am really getting sick of that. Honestly, if I wanted the kind of reality that some of these games are trying to continually push, I would just go buy a gun and not the game.
Can I jump to a location on a scrollbar with the MMB in any version of Windows or MacOS? No.
If you think that is a great feature you have been using Linux too long. Look down at you keyboard. See the HOME/END/PGUP/PGDN keys there?
Those also magically jump to areas within a document.
Can I use up to 16 desktops in any version of Widnows or MacOS (without ugly 3rd party tools)? No.
The real question here is...why would you want to. The desktop was not designed to be a replacement for a menu or your filesystem itself. It is just a central hub to return to and leave thing where you might need to find them quickly. 16 desktops is just another number like Internet Explorer being 10% faster, or Windows 98 being 100% more stable. In fact, using CLASSID's and shell objects, it would entirely be possible to have 16 desktops under Windows, but you would need a reason to do it first.
Can I create bookmark directories in IE without launching a helper-app? No.
Actually, that is a lie. The Favourites folder is a real folder just like in Netscape or your beloved Konquerer. If you are using 9x, go to C:\Windows\Favourites and open it up. You can drag and drop bookmarks and folders in and out of it just like any other folder. The helper app just for people who have the time to compile an entire installation of KDE 3, but can't even open their friggin Windows folder and see what's inside.
The fact is, these are all not useful features. They are just features that people like you can quote as reasons that KDE is superior to Windows/MacOS/OS2/etc.
Creative use of the SHAPE-Extension for windows decorations have been around much longer than OS X and Windows XP.
Yes, but that was a Copland feature like 10 years ago. Apple just doesn't ship their OS's with the themes (they did ship with some OS8/OSX-Client(98) betas). The API is still there though, and a product called Kaleidoscope has been around for years making use of it.
You do now that both Microsoft and Apple also have programms that perform very poorly in usability tests? Take a look at the Interface Hall of Shame. There are quite some MS-products in there (and even Apples Quicktime). Sometimes they even make a bad UI for political reasons, which you most probably won't find in open source projects.
Until Helix Gnome and KDE 2, most of the open source apps were canidates for the interface hall of shame. The default X widgets are so clumsy and ugly that any X app would have made it there, no matter how long the programmer spent trying to get a well working interface out of it.
Not only that, but I constantly see open source projects on the Mac and Windows that do not follow either vendor's UI Guidelines. In my opinion, Open Source projects have been the source many of the worst interface designs (Visual Basic apps following right behind).
* Granted, Explorer windows do this -- however, my entire session (licq, noatun, kmail (minimized), konsole, konqueror, gimp (on another desktop), anything else I happen to have open) will appear in the correct spot on logout/login. Windows will *not* do that without create "Startup" shortcuts for each app, and even then it will not recognize whne I close something then logout/login.
Actually, under NT if you turn on the option, Windows will reload everything exactly as you left it, including unsaved notepad Windows and anything else you leave open. This option is off by default because it is very annoying. I think you can find it under your start menu options under 2K/XP.
No, the beauty behind the FastTrack network structure is that the files are not indexed on Kazaa servers (which is what brought down Napster). They simply point you towards a supernode, and the supernode indexes you. Thus the user running the supernode is responsible for not shutting off your file transfers, not Kazaa or its affiliates. The court cannot do anything about it.
They are both Unix(-like), both solve the same problems but Linux does it cheaper and allows you to look ath the source code.
Actually, the price of Solaris is not really that expensive unless you are using a system with very many CPUs. A single user copy if you download it is pretty much free. It is the hardware needed to run it on that is expensive. Also, the solaris source code is available.
I doubt Sun really cares that badly about the success of Solaris so much as they care about the failure if IBM. As far as I can tell, this article is mostly pushing the fact that a cluster of low end Sun boxes running Linux will be better than an IBM mainframe running Linux.
You would think that, but it really is just the lack of exposure to other operating systems that drives Windows forward in the market. A year or two ago, most of my friends would laugh at the fact that I said the MacOS was superior to Windows. It was not the fact that they knew Windows was better, it was actually because their only exposure to the MacOS was the installs of System 6 running on the Mac Classics at high school, whereas their exposure to Windows was constant.
Eventually, when they finally got a chance to try a newer Mac with a modern operating system (by borrowing an older PowerMac of mine), they admitted that Windows was of far less quality. They also noticed that a lot of old Mac features (ie. speech) that had been around since the 80's were features that Microsoft was mostly pushing as their own cutting edge innovation. Now, they only use their Win machines for gaming.
The fact is, that the situation is the same for the BeOS, but much worse. BeOS never found any niche markets like schools where it could appear at all. It was known only to those who really knew about alternate OS's, and in the vast PC market, that is not very much. I mean really, not a lot of home users have even heard of Linux, and it is quite popular.
A while ago Apple used to ship DOS compatability cards with some of their Mac models. Those rocked, you had an x86 processor on the card and all you did was hit COMMAND-ENTER and you would switch over to the PC. I think that would be a much better solution, since they wouldn't have to include Windows and pay Microsoft (although they would have to buy Intel or AMD processors for the card). It was a very good solution for the time, although they dropped support for them in OS 8.5.
These Mac people want to skip performance, skip practicality, and jump right to "But what does it look like? Does it come in any more colors?"
No, the difference is in the quality feel that I get from the Mac. You never have to mess around with drivers or kernel modules because the manufacturer who made the hardware also made the OS. I never have to worry about buying a board with bad chipset, or installing the drivers and software fixes for it. Most of the time I am surprised that x86 motherboard manufacturers even test their products, since many have compatability and performance problems months after their release. Why should I have to worry about my chipset etc. at all?
Another thing is the general quality that is expected from Apple. If Apple released a half-assed product they would get slammed hard. Something as simple as a window not refreshing properly will piss off a Mac user. Most x86 users just submit to it and convince themselves that it will be fixed in the next release. Things that Apple would never let slip by are commonplace on all of the x86 operating systems, and people just accept it because "its a PC" or "the operating system is free".
I use both Mac's and PC's, and though I find that I can do more on my PC, I find that I cannot do it as efficiently or reliably as I can on my Mac. The interface is incredibly well done and it never screws up.
OS 9 was more reliable than everything else? Can I have some of what you are smoking? Especially since it probably wasn't being used for any services.
At my job location we have an OS9 server running Filemaker Pro Server and Apple PWS. It has never crashed since the day it was set up. The problem most Mac servers have is that they are run by idiot admins who install every extention possible and write poor AppleScripts that screw up all the time, usually because they are so "Linux leet" that they figure they can't screw up the simplest operating system in the world.
I used to work in an all MS shop and would get the daily log of the dozens of servers that had locked up and needed to be manually rebooted everynight. Sad really.
I would agree with that if you were running NT4, since we had the same problems on some boxes. Under 2k I have never had to reboot any of my boxes for reasons that weren't hardware related.
If anyone who worked for me even brought up trying to run any important service on an OS that wasn't truely a multitasking environment(that's >win98 or >MacOS9) I would have just laughed.
The multitasking has nothing to do with anything. The multitasking that is used in the MacOS is fine as long as the application gives proper time to background apps. In fact, under OS9 the scheduler will still give a fair amount of time to any background apps that need it regardless of what the foreground app is doing, until the task in the background is completed.
Win98's multitasking is preemptive, it just does not support proper threading. It can handle itself theoretically just as well as Linux can. As far as NT goes, I find its multitasking better than Linux, especially with the ability to define task priority (although you may be able to do that in Linux, I am not 100% sure). try running 'top' on a high loaded Linux server and see what happens.
It was always a sad day for me when I would install a server in the medical department that was running win98. Because I knew that I was going to have nothing but trouble with that box going down all the time.
What most likely happened is the same thing that I see with most hardcore Linux people. They will spend 4 hours screwing around with configs in/etc and reading syslogs but they will not take 4 seconds to run through their Windows registry, or look at their Windows logs. If you've ever had a competent Windows admin, you will find that all of the problems that the leet Linux gurus complain about are just not there. DLL hell? Righ click on it and look at the version number for f*ck sakes. Patches screwing up? Manually extract them and see what its going to install before you blindly open it. Blue screens? Most of the time they are "Fatal Exception 0E", which is actually a processor generated exception that Windows is just informing you about.
I could go on but then I would be dubbed a troll and I don't like that...
Now don't get me wrong, I think Linux is a great operating system, however I would never suggest it as a desktop replacement. Consider this:
1) Program installation is still a pain in the ass for a novice user. The package managers are good but their interfaces are lacking the concept of simplicity. A desktop user doesn't want to mess around with dependencies, they want to double click and icon and install it. Also, there is no replacement for InstallShield on Linux. People need a consistent, easy to use installation interface for their software. You may not know it, but most desktop users could care less about what configuration options are available etc. They just want to hit the next button and get up and going.
2) Linux distros have a hard time focusing on a desktop only Linux. In reality, my mom could care less if she could spawn a web server on her home box. Why does she need Apache then? As a matter of fact, why does the server install of RedHat install wav converters? If distributions would focus on the task at hand instead of how much garbage they could pack into an install, it might be less confusing and probably more secure.
3) Linux's configuration is too difficult for most people. There is no standardization between config files. No end user should have to learn a whole new language each time they want to change a simple option. Hell, half of the stuff out there that's complex scripting languages could just as easily use an INI file.
4) The filesystem structure is terrible for the end user. Putting an app in "C:\Program Files" or "Hard Disk:Applications" is a hell of a lot simpler than/usr/local/whatever, that is if the package installs it there instead of/root/whatever or god knows where else. Most people are not going to have a much easier time saving documents in something aptly named like "My Documents" instead of/home/foo.
5) The documentation in many areas is still very poor. When someone needs to do something they have to browse through several HOWTO's and message board posts before finding what you are looking for. A lot of project documentation is structured so that you pretty much have to read the whole thing before you can do what you want to. People don't want to spend 8 hours learning the basic concepts of TCP/IP and the entire history of UNIX when they just want to change their hostname. Manpages also seem to focus too much on some areas and often barely mention others. Manpages are not a good help subsystem and HOWTO's are definately not a solid replacement for somthing like the knowledge base.
6) Tech support is hell on Linux. The distributions throw files in different places, someone could have any number of different kernel configurations, and the error messages are only good for developers. When an app crashes or exits a "Sorry, this app has crashed" dialog and the appropriate fault information is much more handy than "Failed kernel lock -- error 2". Who knows what error 2 is unless you are a developer?
I really would like to see Linux on the desktop, but I find that the current efforts towards that end are not sufficient enough to replace Windows. Most Linux users have long forgotten what people want and need on the desktop, and thus they find it acceptable. People like my parents (who use both Win/Mac), look at Linux and they do not see the same friendlyness or consistency at all. They also do not have the endless amount of time that Linux seems to require.
If Linux is going to make it to the desktop there will have to be some major consolidation between the distros and developers, and I can't see that happening soon.
and the reason that was such a slow pig was that there had been a push within ms to use ms foundation classes (mfc) for all applications.
Yeah, I remember when Visual C was ported to the Mac (during the System 7.5 era). It was such a useless piece because any app you wrote would have to be distributed with a ton of MS compatability libraries. I'm sure most of Microsoft's Mac teams were forced to use it for years after.
I also use AppleWorks regularly, and I prefer it over Office 2001. The menus and toolbars seem more intuitive for a user who just wants to make a quick document and not mess around with various wizards. It also seems to run a lot faster than Office, and it doesn't require the entire Windows API packaged into about 20 library files.
Though Office 2001 is a very smooth running application and is leaps and bounds over Office 98, it still cannot compare to Apple's programmers on their own platform.
Meanwhile, Adobe Germany was amid a storm of a roaring protest, beginning with mail bombs of "fuck you" messages and angry phone calls all day.
That is just lame. So many people on Slashdot are such hypocrites. First, they complain because companies like Microsoft and Adobe are using strong arm tactics...then they use them themselves on these companies.
I'm so sick of this "its bad to be a big company" or "non-opensource projects are evil" attitude that is so often displayed here. If it wasn't for those big companies and proprietary projects we would all still be loading our "free" programs through BASIC interpreter ROMs.
If you don't like a company, don't buy their software. Childish email bombings and obscene calls are just as bad if not worse than the actions of these companies. Its not like the people who have to sift through these countless messages are going to change the lawsuit. You are just creating more work for people who have to go earn a living instead of compiling Linux kernels all day.
Mod this as a troll, whatever... but you know its the truth.
So you think Apple won't mind me copying my OS-X CD for my own "private use" then?:-)
I'm sure Apple would not really care. All the big money is in their hardware. If they sell one premium G4 installation at $20,000 they make more than 200 copies of OSX would. OSX is to the Apple what Solaris is to Sun -- a better tool to leverage their hardware.
Not only that, but I'm sure Apple would rather people pirate OSX to increase distribution and development. Not a lot of Mac users have made the jump to OSX yet, so they really need OSX to become very mainstream. On many Hotline servers there are always copies of the MacOS circulating around, inlcluding unreleased and development builds. These get leaked for a reason.
Apple really doesn't care about the client. A lot more money will come in from Mac OS X Server and WebObjects, which require keys and actual user registration
Slashdot Mirror
I discovered the same thing with USB cards the other day. I bought a PCI USB card from "PC Ally" which was $30 less than the "Mac Ally" one. After installing Apple's USB drivers into OS9, the card worked perfectly!
Windows 95OSR2 will run USB if you apply the USB supplement. I can't seem to find it anywhere on the web, but it is on some Win95 CD's in the usbsup folder (though I think they have to read "with USB support" on the disc.
As for Windows 98, if you are not using 98SE I would seriously try that. There was a lot of work on the driver subsystem under 98SE (though mostly WDM support), and it might fix your problem. Most of the people I know who use Windows on the lower end use 98SE and have no problems.2K and XP will also run on lower end CPUs (166Mhz and higher I think), but you need a lot of RAM to run them at a proper speed. The minimum amount of RAM supported by 2K is 32MB, but it runs really badly. If you have 64MB of RAM or more you should be fine. Under XP, you also can go 'Control Panels->System->Advanced->Settings (under the Performance groupbox) and choose 'Adjust for Best Performance'. This will turn off most of the visual effects and not use the theme service.
I hope this helps. Personally, I find Me too bloated and the crippled DOS makes it just unusable for many tasks.
There was a Mac version of Nero called NeroMax. I can't seem to find it on Ahead's page anymore, but you can download it here.
It's very hard to tell a company they need to upgrade their office suite when nothing has changed but the interface and the clip-arts.
Oh come on, look at all the great features that newer versions of Office offer! What company wouldn't be interested in powerful advances like Smart Tags and MSN Messenger integration! Well worth the $500 if you ask me...
I too was a little dissapointed in WC3's graphics. After seeing the way Battle Realms looked, and the fact that it was still smooth on a P166, made me think WC3 was going to be so much more. However, I don't find the gameplay of Battle Realms to be even close to as good as Warcraft 3's.
I have a Voodoo 3 and WC3 runs pretty well on my system. However, I am also running the AmigaMerlin drivers instead of the standard 3dfx ones, and I have it clocked up to 180Mhz. You might want to try some of the options under your 3dfx tools or get one of those 3dfx hacking/overclocking programs (you can get them from VoodooFiles as well).
If it is just a performance thing, it might just be RAM (WC3 seems to need a lot of it). I found that performance improved greatly under XP when I shut off a bunch of extra services.
In the end, it means you download a DiVX .avi file and half the time it doesn't seem to play, at least until you have done all the web searching to get all the codecs. I barely have time to watch clips much less hunt for codecs.
There are some really good codec packs from DivX Digest. I have had a lot of success with these packs, I think right now I am running the BgBop Codec Pack and almost everything I run into has opened without any problems.
DOS is a real mode operating system. The features you describe are all available in protected mode, which could not be used without sacrificing the ability to run on 286 and lower processors. It would be a major pain to implement them in real mode. DOS was not denying you of anything, it simply was not designed to be used in that manner. That's what Windows was for...
I had also done the sysoc.inf trick and it worked...for a while. After visiting Windows update, it seems that messenger starts up again, and even worse I can't close it while Outlook Express is running (it gives some lame message about shared components). Also, if you kill the process from task manager, it just respawns after about a minute.
I agree. Many games have just become too complex as far as controls and gameplay go. I really hate to get into a game and find that there are around 50 keys that I am supposed to memorize, and failing to remember just one at a critical moment gets you rocked. I am really getting sick of that. Honestly, if I wanted the kind of reality that some of these games are trying to continually push, I would just go buy a gun and not the game.
There is a registry key you can use which removes the 128bit limit on search results.
Can I jump to a location on a scrollbar with the MMB in any version of Windows or MacOS? No.
If you think that is a great feature you have been using Linux too long. Look down at you keyboard. See the HOME/END/PGUP/PGDN keys there? Those also magically jump to areas within a document.
Can I use up to 16 desktops in any version of Widnows or MacOS (without ugly 3rd party tools)? No.
The real question here is...why would you want to. The desktop was not designed to be a replacement for a menu or your filesystem itself. It is just a central hub to return to and leave thing where you might need to find them quickly. 16 desktops is just another number like Internet Explorer being 10% faster, or Windows 98 being 100% more stable. In fact, using CLASSID's and shell objects, it would entirely be possible to have 16 desktops under Windows, but you would need a reason to do it first.
Can I create bookmark directories in IE without launching a helper-app? No.
Actually, that is a lie. The Favourites folder is a real folder just like in Netscape or your beloved Konquerer. If you are using 9x, go to C:\Windows\Favourites and open it up. You can drag and drop bookmarks and folders in and out of it just like any other folder. The helper app just for people who have the time to compile an entire installation of KDE 3, but can't even open their friggin Windows folder and see what's inside.
The fact is, these are all not useful features. They are just features that people like you can quote as reasons that KDE is superior to Windows/MacOS/OS2/etc.
Creative use of the SHAPE-Extension for windows decorations have been around much longer than OS X and Windows XP.
Yes, but that was a Copland feature like 10 years ago. Apple just doesn't ship their OS's with the themes (they did ship with some OS8/OSX-Client(98) betas). The API is still there though, and a product called Kaleidoscope has been around for years making use of it.
You do now that both Microsoft and Apple also have programms that perform very poorly in usability tests? Take a look at the Interface Hall of Shame. There are quite some MS-products in there (and even Apples Quicktime). Sometimes they even make a bad UI for political reasons, which you most probably won't find in open source projects.
Until Helix Gnome and KDE 2, most of the open source apps were canidates for the interface hall of shame. The default X widgets are so clumsy and ugly that any X app would have made it there, no matter how long the programmer spent trying to get a well working interface out of it.
Not only that, but I constantly see open source projects on the Mac and Windows that do not follow either vendor's UI Guidelines. In my opinion, Open Source projects have been the source many of the worst interface designs (Visual Basic apps following right behind).
* Granted, Explorer windows do this -- however, my entire session (licq, noatun, kmail (minimized), konsole, konqueror, gimp (on another desktop), anything else I happen to have open) will appear in the correct spot on logout/login. Windows will *not* do that without create "Startup" shortcuts for each app, and even then it will not recognize whne I close something then logout/login.
Actually, under NT if you turn on the option, Windows will reload everything exactly as you left it, including unsaved notepad Windows and anything else you leave open. This option is off by default because it is very annoying. I think you can find it under your start menu options under 2K/XP.
No, the beauty behind the FastTrack network structure is that the files are not indexed on Kazaa servers (which is what brought down Napster). They simply point you towards a supernode, and the supernode indexes you. Thus the user running the supernode is responsible for not shutting off your file transfers, not Kazaa or its affiliates. The court cannot do anything about it.
They are both Unix(-like), both solve the same problems but Linux does it cheaper and allows you to look ath the source code.
Actually, the price of Solaris is not really that expensive unless you are using a system with very many CPUs. A single user copy if you download it is pretty much free. It is the hardware needed to run it on that is expensive. Also, the solaris source code is available.
I doubt Sun really cares that badly about the success of Solaris so much as they care about the failure if IBM. As far as I can tell, this article is mostly pushing the fact that a cluster of low end Sun boxes running Linux will be better than an IBM mainframe running Linux.
You would think that, but it really is just the lack of exposure to other operating systems that drives Windows forward in the market. A year or two ago, most of my friends would laugh at the fact that I said the MacOS was superior to Windows. It was not the fact that they knew Windows was better, it was actually because their only exposure to the MacOS was the installs of System 6 running on the Mac Classics at high school, whereas their exposure to Windows was constant.
Eventually, when they finally got a chance to try a newer Mac with a modern operating system (by borrowing an older PowerMac of mine), they admitted that Windows was of far less quality. They also noticed that a lot of old Mac features (ie. speech) that had been around since the 80's were features that Microsoft was mostly pushing as their own cutting edge innovation. Now, they only use their Win machines for gaming.
The fact is, that the situation is the same for the BeOS, but much worse. BeOS never found any niche markets like schools where it could appear at all. It was known only to those who really knew about alternate OS's, and in the vast PC market, that is not very much. I mean really, not a lot of home users have even heard of Linux, and it is quite popular.
A while ago Apple used to ship DOS compatability cards with some of their Mac models. Those rocked, you had an x86 processor on the card and all you did was hit COMMAND-ENTER and you would switch over to the PC. I think that would be a much better solution, since they wouldn't have to include Windows and pay Microsoft (although they would have to buy Intel or AMD processors for the card). It was a very good solution for the time, although they dropped support for them in OS 8.5.
These Mac people want to skip performance, skip practicality, and jump right to "But what does it look like? Does it come in any more colors?"
No, the difference is in the quality feel that I get from the Mac. You never have to mess around with drivers or kernel modules because the manufacturer who made the hardware also made the OS. I never have to worry about buying a board with bad chipset, or installing the drivers and software fixes for it. Most of the time I am surprised that x86 motherboard manufacturers even test their products, since many have compatability and performance problems months after their release. Why should I have to worry about my chipset etc. at all?
Another thing is the general quality that is expected from Apple. If Apple released a half-assed product they would get slammed hard. Something as simple as a window not refreshing properly will piss off a Mac user. Most x86 users just submit to it and convince themselves that it will be fixed in the next release. Things that Apple would never let slip by are commonplace on all of the x86 operating systems, and people just accept it because "its a PC" or "the operating system is free".
I use both Mac's and PC's, and though I find that I can do more on my PC, I find that I cannot do it as efficiently or reliably as I can on my Mac. The interface is incredibly well done and it never screws up.
OS 9 was more reliable than everything else? Can I have some of what you are smoking? Especially since it probably wasn't being used for any services.
At my job location we have an OS9 server running Filemaker Pro Server and Apple PWS. It has never crashed since the day it was set up. The problem most Mac servers have is that they are run by idiot admins who install every extention possible and write poor AppleScripts that screw up all the time, usually because they are so "Linux leet" that they figure they can't screw up the simplest operating system in the world.
I used to work in an all MS shop and would get the daily log of the dozens of servers that had locked up and needed to be manually rebooted everynight. Sad really.
I would agree with that if you were running NT4, since we had the same problems on some boxes. Under 2k I have never had to reboot any of my boxes for reasons that weren't hardware related.
If anyone who worked for me even brought up trying to run any important service on an OS that wasn't truely a multitasking environment(that's >win98 or >MacOS9) I would have just laughed.
The multitasking has nothing to do with anything. The multitasking that is used in the MacOS is fine as long as the application gives proper time to background apps. In fact, under OS9 the scheduler will still give a fair amount of time to any background apps that need it regardless of what the foreground app is doing, until the task in the background is completed.
Win98's multitasking is preemptive, it just does not support proper threading. It can handle itself theoretically just as well as Linux can. As far as NT goes, I find its multitasking better than Linux, especially with the ability to define task priority (although you may be able to do that in Linux, I am not 100% sure). try running 'top' on a high loaded Linux server and see what happens.
It was always a sad day for me when I would install a server in the medical department that was running win98. Because I knew that I was going to have nothing but trouble with that box going down all the time.
What most likely happened is the same thing that I see with most hardcore Linux people. They will spend 4 hours screwing around with configs in /etc and reading syslogs but they will not take 4 seconds to run through their Windows registry, or look at their Windows logs. If you've ever had a competent Windows admin, you will find that all of the problems that the leet Linux gurus complain about are just not there. DLL hell? Righ click on it and look at the version number for f*ck sakes. Patches screwing up? Manually extract them and see what its going to install before you blindly open it. Blue screens? Most of the time they are "Fatal Exception 0E", which is actually a processor generated exception that Windows is just informing you about.
I could go on but then I would be dubbed a troll and I don't like that...
Now don't get me wrong, I think Linux is a great operating system, however I would never suggest it as a desktop replacement. Consider this:
1) Program installation is still a pain in the ass for a novice user. The package managers are good but their interfaces are lacking the concept of simplicity. A desktop user doesn't want to mess around with dependencies, they want to double click and icon and install it. Also, there is no replacement for InstallShield on Linux. People need a consistent, easy to use installation interface for their software. You may not know it, but most desktop users could care less about what configuration options are available etc. They just want to hit the next button and get up and going.
2) Linux distros have a hard time focusing on a desktop only Linux. In reality, my mom could care less if she could spawn a web server on her home box. Why does she need Apache then? As a matter of fact, why does the server install of RedHat install wav converters? If distributions would focus on the task at hand instead of how much garbage they could pack into an install, it might be less confusing and probably more secure.
3) Linux's configuration is too difficult for most people. There is no standardization between config files. No end user should have to learn a whole new language each time they want to change a simple option. Hell, half of the stuff out there that's complex scripting languages could just as easily use an INI file.
4) The filesystem structure is terrible for the end user. Putting an app in "C:\Program Files" or "Hard Disk:Applications" is a hell of a lot simpler than /usr/local/whatever, that is if the package installs it there instead of /root/whatever or god knows where else. Most people are not going to have a much easier time saving documents in something aptly named like "My Documents" instead of /home/foo.
5) The documentation in many areas is still very poor. When someone needs to do something they have to browse through several HOWTO's and message board posts before finding what you are looking for. A lot of project documentation is structured so that you pretty much have to read the whole thing before you can do what you want to. People don't want to spend 8 hours learning the basic concepts of TCP/IP and the entire history of UNIX when they just want to change their hostname. Manpages also seem to focus too much on some areas and often barely mention others. Manpages are not a good help subsystem and HOWTO's are definately not a solid replacement for somthing like the knowledge base.
6) Tech support is hell on Linux. The distributions throw files in different places, someone could have any number of different kernel configurations, and the error messages are only good for developers. When an app crashes or exits a "Sorry, this app has crashed" dialog and the appropriate fault information is much more handy than "Failed kernel lock -- error 2". Who knows what error 2 is unless you are a developer?
I really would like to see Linux on the desktop, but I find that the current efforts towards that end are not sufficient enough to replace Windows. Most Linux users have long forgotten what people want and need on the desktop, and thus they find it acceptable. People like my parents (who use both Win/Mac), look at Linux and they do not see the same friendlyness or consistency at all. They also do not have the endless amount of time that Linux seems to require.
If Linux is going to make it to the desktop there will have to be some major consolidation between the distros and developers, and I can't see that happening soon.
and the reason that was such a slow pig was that there had been a push within ms to use ms foundation classes (mfc) for all applications.
Yeah, I remember when Visual C was ported to the Mac (during the System 7.5 era). It was such a useless piece because any app you wrote would have to be distributed with a ton of MS compatability libraries. I'm sure most of Microsoft's Mac teams were forced to use it for years after.
I also use AppleWorks regularly, and I prefer it over Office 2001. The menus and toolbars seem more intuitive for a user who just wants to make a quick document and not mess around with various wizards. It also seems to run a lot faster than Office, and it doesn't require the entire Windows API packaged into about 20 library files.
Though Office 2001 is a very smooth running application and is leaps and bounds over Office 98, it still cannot compare to Apple's programmers on their own platform.
Meanwhile, Adobe Germany was amid a storm of a roaring protest, beginning with mail bombs of "fuck you" messages and angry phone calls all day.
That is just lame. So many people on Slashdot are such hypocrites. First, they complain because companies like Microsoft and Adobe are using strong arm tactics...then they use them themselves on these companies.
I'm so sick of this "its bad to be a big company" or "non-opensource projects are evil" attitude that is so often displayed here. If it wasn't for those big companies and proprietary projects we would all still be loading our "free" programs through BASIC interpreter ROMs.
If you don't like a company, don't buy their software. Childish email bombings and obscene calls are just as bad if not worse than the actions of these companies. Its not like the people who have to sift through these countless messages are going to change the lawsuit. You are just creating more work for people who have to go earn a living instead of compiling Linux kernels all day.
Mod this as a troll, whatever... but you know its the truth.
So you think Apple won't mind me copying my OS-X CD for my own "private use" then? :-)
I'm sure Apple would not really care. All the big money is in their hardware. If they sell one premium G4 installation at $20,000 they make more than 200 copies of OSX would. OSX is to the Apple what Solaris is to Sun -- a better tool to leverage their hardware.
Not only that, but I'm sure Apple would rather people pirate OSX to increase distribution and development. Not a lot of Mac users have made the jump to OSX yet, so they really need OSX to become very mainstream. On many Hotline servers there are always copies of the MacOS circulating around, inlcluding unreleased and development builds. These get leaked for a reason.
Apple really doesn't care about the client. A lot more money will come in from Mac OS X Server and WebObjects, which require keys and actual user registration