The Energon Pub

I'm a UNIX/Linux guy to begin with. At my work I use mostly Windows (XP Pro/Server). But lately I have been using a Mac and I was looking at Mac OSX 10.5. I was thinking "Why upgrade?" cause from my experience with Windows, things usually get slower as you upgrade. After I read the review on OSX 10.5 it seems you get a slight perfomrance upgrade. And I started thinking that I have been conditioned by Microsoft to expect that a new OS upgrade, probably needs more RAM, etc. to keep it the same performance as it used to be. So I started thinking, what is the best OS that I used, and believe it or not, I liked Windows 3.1 with DOS.

Wow, that sounds archaic doesn't it? But let me say why, you had a decent GUI, but to make the GUI work, you had text files to effect it (like ini files, etc.), no registry that could get screwed up (and billions of remnant files left behind after uninstalling it). You also could drop down easier into a command line and start working from there, or you could completely exit the GUI and just work in DOS. And in the GUI, simple tasks were simple, like adding a printer, etc.

Now MAC OSs are starting to get you to the command line level, but it is still new for them (WTF, no SU password...I know how to get in as SU, but it is YOUR computer). Windows is trying to leave DOS behind, but you still need it for some things and they made it more of a pain to use the command line by trying to hide it (SQL Server requires a alot of command line setup). And Linux is the closest example to Windows 3.1 and DOS, but I still don't get why they can't make certain tasks simpler in Linux/UNIX, like writing a CD, or setting up a printer.

It also makes you wonder how certain OSs would have faired today if they continued to develop, like OS2 or Amiga OS?

What does everyone else think?

For a long time I was a Windows man. From DOS6+Win3.1 to XP I was behind Microsoft, though I skipped ME completely. Toward the end of XP's run however I became very disillusioned with Microsoft, as they made it very difficult for me to legally move my operating system from computer to computer.

Previously I had a brief experience with Mandrake and decided to revisit Linux, and gave Fedora a try. It was perhaps the best move I ever made though I always kept XP as a backup for gaming.

Nowadays however, I have switched to Kubuntu as I find it very user friendly and the Ubuntu repository makes it very easy to install almost any program I need without having to compile it like I did on Fedora. (Plus the fact YUM really sucks, IMO.)

With the added bonus of the leaps and bounds that WINE is making I don't even have a Windows installation anymore. I have Oblivion running under WINE on Kubuntu at 1280x1024 at full detail with very little slowdown, and I haven't found many games that won't run under WINE now, even though some need a little tweaking.

So I would have to say, as it stands, Kubuntu is probably my favourite GNU/Linux derivative OS. XP is the best Windows OS, it still has command line functionality, isn't bogged down by pointless features like Vista and is very stable as long as you know how to take care of it.

But overall, Kubuntu is certainly my favourite.

Windows XP. I know it best, it works fine and I have no reason to learn Linux because most places don't use it. Or Mac for that matter.

i'm most familiar with XP, but i have vista. i'm just too lazy to downgrade

Vista. It may sound crazy, but I fell in love with Vista when I first got to use it.

I don't know where all the complaints come from. "It stole from Mac!!" Mac is poopy anyway. "It's too slow!" Then upgrade your RAM, One gig is only $20. And if anyone said Vista is too hard to navigate, (Have they? I haven't heard anyone say that) I won't answer it, because it's a bold-faced lie. Vista is easier to Navigate than XP by miles. Having all folders, collapsible off to the side (Information taken from highlighting, such as file type, number of files, and so on, is moved to the bottom), is actually a really nice touch.

I hate Vista because of the fact they moved everything for the sake of moving it. Things have been in the same spot since 95. Why change it just to confuse consumers? Oh because they had to make it seem new. I had Vista for all of two weeks before I realized my mistake and bought another copy of XP.

Horrible operating system. No one will ever sway my opinion on it.

Shadowman wrote:Vista. It may sound crazy, but I fell in love with Vista when I first got to use it.

I don't know where all the complaints come from. "It stole from Mac!!" Mac is poopy anyway. "It's too slow!" Then upgrade your RAM, One gig is only $20. And if anyone said Vista is too hard to navigate, (Have they? I haven't heard anyone say that) I won't answer it, because it's a bold-faced lie. Vista is easier to Navigate than XP by miles. Having all folders, collapsible off to the side (Information taken from highlighting, such as file type, number of files, and so on, is moved to the bottom), is actually a really nice touch.

I wouldn't call Mac poopy, it's underlying core is UNIX and it will blow the doors off of Vista. My big problem with Vista is that you need to add the extra 1 gig of ram. That is a problem not because of the price, but because you now need doule the memory to be equivalent of XP. People have forgotten that most OS upgrades outside of Windows usually makes your system perform better...which is why you normally buy a new OS.

I do want Vista though because being the new Windows platform, it is probably the best thing to test and develop applications on.

I'm also curious about Virtual Machining off of Vista.

My favorite is OS X. I have Tiger right now, haven't upgraded yet, but I've never had a problem upgrading a Mac OS.

This is all based strictly on user interface, as I don't program. However it is the bomb for Photoshop and all over ease of navigation. I've also never visibly noticed my Mac get slower over time, even without changing anything or installing anything new like I do on PC's.

I've never used any other OS besides a little bit of SGI so I can't really comment on those.

Bumblebee-otch wrote:i'm most familiar with XP, but i have vista. i'm just too lazy to downgrade

Hah. Lazy isn't the word for it. Believe me, it's a lot of *HARD* work to downgrade.

HP/Compaq and Toshiba all have Vista 32/64 bit drivers, but they're slowly phasing out XP 32/64 bit drivers.

So...you have to find each piece of hardware in your computer such as:

Audio
Lan
Motherboard
Video Drivers (I clumped those together because they're generally integrated as one piece and you can usually find the drivers you need from the motherboard's manufacturer.)

Modem

CD/DVD-/+RW

Etc...and here's the catch. Even if you can get lucky enough to grab a hold of XP drivers...most of the hardware that's installed...is Vista certified and most likely won't work in an XP setting. Even if it's Professional Edition *and* you could force the drivers to work.

So, calling yourself lazy is wrong. Adept at avoiding a difficult task that may end up impossible. There...that's better.

That's why you format everything and eliminate having to deal with downgrading. Format the new computer, install XP, and get your drivers.

TheMuffin wrote:That's why you format everything and eliminate having to deal with downgrading. Format the new computer, install XP, and get your drivers.

Oh no no, I agree. I'm a wipe drive kinda guy myself.

Problem is, these components are hard to find drivers for on the newer models. That's the plan.

A friend of the family just got his son a Toshiba Satellite laptop for his graduation present and the modem fried.

I said "take it back to XP, it'll run better." So we scoured left and right looking for drivers. All we came up with was WiFi, video and audio. Everything else just didn't have an XP driver.

So he called Toshiba, and they admitted that the modems were bad before they shipped them, but it had to be done to meet a deadline. All work and costs involved would rest squarely on Toshiba's shoulders. He asked about the drivers for XP and the guy said "There are none. Not any more. We build with Vista compatible pieces only. Microsoft is asking all of the manufacturers to push Vista. XP will no longer be supported in the next couple of years."

So it's not as easy as one would think. And I personally find it disgusting that they'd use such a tactic. So...we tried my theory that it could work regardless. I was wrong. Video? Nope. Audio? Nope. Wired/Wireless Ethernet? Nope. Only the HDD, DVD-RW (ROM portion only) and a basic video display would work in XP. Connected to the internet, no updated drivers, nothin' nada zip zilch.

GetterDragun wrote:I wouldn't call Mac poopy, it's underlying core is UNIX and it will blow the doors off of Vista.

I would call Mac poopy. And I did. I doubt Mac could hold a candle to Vista. Ever. If Vista was so bad, I wouldn't have gotten it. if Vista was so bad, I wouldn't have this sweet-ass PC I have now.

GetterDragun wrote:My big problem with Vista is that you need to add the extra 1 gig of ram. That is a problem not because of the price, but because you now need doule the memory to be equivalent of XP. People have forgotten that most OS upgrades outside of Windows usually makes your system perform better...which is why you normally buy a new OS.

It runs wonderfully on a half a gig. (512MB for those of you who don't know) I got an extra Gig so I could run games better. (This is not Vista's fault, this is because most high-end games these days have usually a Gig or two as it's recommended specs)

Shadowman wrote:

GetterDragun wrote:I wouldn't call Mac poopy, it's underlying core is UNIX and it will blow the doors off of Vista.

I would call Mac poopy. And I did. I doubt Mac could hold a candle to Vista. Ever. If Vista was so bad, I wouldn't have gotten it. if Vista was so bad, I wouldn't have this sweet-ass PC I have now.

Then you made a bad choice. It sounds like you have no knowledge of how the underlying parts of both systems work.

Mac is based on UNIX. The way UNIX handles writing to disk, shared memory, etc., etc. Windows can't compare. This is why most mission critical applications run UNIX and not Windows. Those Mars rovers...UNIX/Linux (maybe even Linux-RT)...any thing more critical than that...like weapons, run a real time OS.

In terms of usability, that is just personell preference. I like Windows XP better than any GUI right now, but I can do many system level things much quicker from a command line.

Which is why I picked Windows 3.1...going from GUI to command line is easy!

How much truth is there to this Vista specific hardware you speak of? I have taken a few Vista pre-installed PCs back to XP for friends and haven't had any of the problems described. But this kind of bullying is something I've come to expect from Microsoft after the DirectX 10 situation with Vista, and is another reason I've made the switch to Linux. As such I can't make a personal decision as to whether this is exaggerated or not.

As for Vista, it isn't much of an upgrade to XP, they could have done just as much with XP but naturally they have to sell their new product. Microsoft is a business at the end of the day. I find it just as usable as XP but there are a few small gripes I have with it.

First is the mixer. The standard Vista mixer is a massive dumbing down of the mixer that's been in just about every other version of Windows. I can't enable playback from line-in anymore? It won't even let me record from a duplicate of the wave in? Even Windows 95 would let me do these things. =/ What's wrong here? Why take away such useful and basic features?

Next is the Windows Theme and a very very minor gripe, I always go for the classic windows look, which is all good since it's still there. But I like a nice bright Desktop, say my current one is bright white clouds. I would make my merry way to Theme Personalization... lo and behold they don't want me to change the icon text colour anymore. It's stuck on white. Ok, fine, I'll just go and change that through the registry. Another tiny but essential feature removed.

Third and perhaps the most frustrating thing yet. I got Vista and installed it on an old Laptop for testing. All well and good, it ran fine and the activation went without a hitch. Then I decide to try it on my Desktop with a nice powerful graphics card, only to be told my license does not allow me to activate Vista on a secondary computer. Well I'm used to this behaviour from Microsoft by now, pay for a license and the software remains "their property". In the end I just said screw it, and cracked it for use without activation.

As far as gaming performance goes, XP blows Vista out of the water, DX10 really makes very little difference, even on a DX10 ready card! Whether games like Crysis will truly bring Vista into its own in the future remains to be seen but at the moment Vista seems to be vastly inferior to XP in terms of practicality. And I don't buy into this nonsense about increased security. As long as you have some semblance of knowing what you're doing it's possible to turn XP into a veritable fortress.

So, I don't hold Vista in very high esteem at all.

To me it is just a grouchy version of XP with bigger boobs.

The fact that GIFs won't even animate in Vista was another killer for me. That new image viewer is beyond retarded.

Shadowman wrote:

GetterDragun wrote:I wouldn't call Mac poopy, it's underlying core is UNIX and it will blow the doors off of Vista.

I would call Mac poopy. And I did. I doubt Mac could hold a candle to Vista. Ever. If Vista was so bad, I wouldn't have gotten it. if Vista was so bad, I wouldn't have this sweet-ass PC I have now.

Crackhead!

Currently, I'm running Mac OS X (10.3.9). I've met the end of the line in this series. I'm ruinning a G4. I have to get the new Intel Macs, before I can start using the widgets and whatnot for the new system.

However, If you use a Mac on any reguiar basis, you know that it beats any Window based OS.

My only complaint is that there is no gaming system for a Mac. My wife wants a new Laptop with a large screen. However, the biggest screen for a Mac is 17" and has to be the MacBook Pro. F#ck that! I don't want to drop 2K+ for a gaming system. The resale value is so high, that I can't get an old version or refab fo any better price.

Other than that, Mac's kick all kinds of @ss!

GetterDragun wrote:I'm a UNIX/Linux guy to begin with. At my work I use mostly Windows (XP Pro/Server). But lately I have been using a Mac and I was looking at Mac OSX 10.5. I was thinking "Why upgrade?" cause from my experience with Windows, things usually get slower as you upgrade. After I read the review on OSX 10.5 it seems you get a slight perfomrance upgrade. And I started thinking that I have been conditioned by Microsoft to expect that a new OS upgrade, probably needs more RAM, etc. to keep it the same performance as it used to be. So I started thinking, what is the best OS that I used, and believe it or not, I liked Windows 3.1 with DOS.

Wow, that sounds archaic doesn't it? But let me say why, you had a decent GUI, but to make the GUI work, you had text files to effect it (like ini files, etc.), no registry that could get screwed up (and billions of remnant files left behind after uninstalling it). You also could drop down easier into a command line and start working from there, or you could completely exit the GUI and just work in DOS. And in the GUI, simple tasks were simple, like adding a printer, etc.

Now MAC OSs are starting to get you to the command line level, but it is still new for them (WTF, no SU password...I know how to get in as SU, but it is YOUR computer). Windows is trying to leave DOS behind, but you still need it for some things and they made it more of a pain to use the command line by trying to hide it (SQL Server requires a alot of command line setup). And Linux is the closest example to Windows 3.1 and DOS, but I still don't get why they can't make certain tasks simpler in Linux/UNIX, like writing a CD, or setting up a printer.

It also makes you wonder how certain OSs would have faired today if they continued to develop, like OS2 or Amiga OS?

What does everyone else think?

Have you tried Ubuntu, I know there was a post of it immediately after yours but I have really fallen in love with this distro of Linux, it's made writing CD's and drivers super easy. So even if you are used to command prompt with gz, tar it makes installing way easy for through a GUI interface for the Linux kernel.

I'm frequently work on XP at work and developed on both platforms UNIX and Windows, the beginning of my career on the Unix side with Java, Perl and the Oracle databases... Second half of my career has all been on the Windows side with Java, .NET and SQL Server. Everything works solidly with UNIX and is one of the most stable operating systems on the planet. I would put my vote on XP as the best Windows OS if your not old school and absolutely like command prompt unlike some of the youngsters that need the GUI interfaces to make everything alot easier for themselves.

As for the MAC OS, I believe you can always succeed if you decide on what your going to support, thats the only thing that ppl do not give Windows credit for is trying to support a million vendors. MAC/Apple does not have this problem since they choose to say incompability. Your not going to break or have that many security issues if they don't allow anything thats not supported through the kernel,so of course it's going to be more stable, it only makes sense!

I've worked for IBM support in the past before programming doing support for the Linux E-Servers and I would say that these guys are rock solid, never had much of a issue migrating disk, sectors, clusters, upgrades as much as I did supporting non-E Servers such as Windows Server 2003 and downwards through the Windows family of OS's...

It's all in what a person wants to do I believe, I'm just against proprietariness, please be open, free, etc... source. Don't close the world, BlOW IT WIDE OPEN!

I'm pretty sure I'll be a Mac user for the rest of my life—mostly because I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign and Macs are what I learned on. AppleScript is also a great feature for saving time when using design software. I am currently running OSX Tiger.