albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 I am currently using Windows Xp,,,, Although I feel Xp is quite stable and graphical interface is better than Me.. but I still feel that Windows has too many problems occuring...... As you can see in my previous threads about "Search Assistant" and "IE" things...... Would Macintosh be more reliable and stable? Or probably Windows 2003 would be much better than Xp, because it is, at least, the latest version of Windows I know....... Any suggestion? Albert
Sayonara Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Windows 2003 is a server, not a workstation if I remember correctly. Mac OS is better than windows for a lot of reasons, but it very much depends on what you want to use your computer for. If you just want a regular home pc, stick with XP. If you want to use your computer as a graphical design workstation then it might be an idea to look at Mac OS as an alternative.
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Windows 2003 is a server' date=' not a workstation if I remember correctly. Mac OS is better than windows for a lot of reasons, but it very much depends on what you want to use your computer for. If you just want a regular home pc, stick with XP. If you want to use your computer as a graphical design workstation then it might be an idea to look at Mac OS as an alternative.[/quote'] OS X is becoming a much more viable alternative for home users, although if you're looking to play lots of games, then it probably isn't for you.
Sayonara Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 I've a friend who swears it's better for audio work too. Not sure how it would be though tbh.
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Better software and a bit more support for things like midi interfaces from what I've gathered. Apple has some a very nice audio program called Soundtrack, and although I've not tried it, the reviews of it seem good.
Aegir Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Macs arent any more stable or reliable than PCs, and PCs are much more compatible with other programs. Stick with PCs, possibly go from XP to win 2000 if you want less of a resouce hog.
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 Aegir, what does "resource hog" mean? I dont understand the abreviation of "hog"... Anyway, Isn't Xp and 2000 same kernel(NT)? Albert
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Macs arent any more stable or reliable than PCs Not necessarily true. I've had XP crash on me a few times over the past month or so I've had it installed on my PC. OS X runs on top of a bsd kernel and hence it's never crashed on the 2 years I've been running it on my iMac at home.
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Aegir' date=' what does "resource hog" mean? I dont understand the abreviation of "hog"... Anyway, Isn't Xp and 2000 same kernel(NT)? Albert[/quote'] Basically XP uses more system resources (CPU, memory, etc) than Win 2k. tbh XP is just 2k with a few tweaks on it. There's nothing "revolutionary" about it like going from Mac OS 9 > Mac OS X.
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 Dave, so why Macintosh is so stable? except the reason of its hardware? APart from that, what kind of kernel is bsd? Secondly, again, what is the abbreviation of "hog" as I asked in my previous message? Albert
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 The latest incarnation of the Mac OS is based off of a bsd system (netbsd I think, but don't quote me). They developed a branch off of bsd called Darwin which runs underneath the GUI effectively, which is fairly easy for them since they know specific hardware in machines, etc. A BSD kernel is similar to a GNU kernel, except for the fact that the BSD kernel was developed by Berkeley (I think) and has different licensing to the GNU kernel (which is under the GNU Public License). As I said previously, when someone says "hog" it usually means it does a lot of whatever comes before it (that's a really bad definition, but I hope you get the picture).
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 Again, then why Macintosh is so stable? Albert
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Because it is based from the BSD kernel which is inherantly stable.
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 Dave, effectively, you just mean that UNIX is stabler than Xp.....right? Albert
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 I've had XP crash on me a few times over the past month or so I've had it installed on my PC. OS X runs on top of a bsd kernel and hence it's never crashed on the 2 years I've been running it on my iMac at home. My XP has only crashed maybe twice (in two years), due to programs, not the OS. Also, I found a serious problem with Mac in a network: If you print, but it fails, so you want to delete it from the print que, the computer freezes. No matter what. It just does, no matter how hard you try. In a school, it fails to print a lot!
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 I daresay that's more to do with something to do with the network itself than the Mac's printer sharing facilities tbh (don't have any kind of problem like that at home).
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 Sorry for asking twice..... Again,Dave, effectively, you just mean that UNIX is stabler than Xp.....right? Albert
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Yes. Anyone that thinks otherwise is obviously mistaken I don't know many other operating systems that can stay up for >1 year without suffering some kind of memory leak somewhere and dying like XP does to me on a fairly regular basis.
J'Dona Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Whether Macs or PC's are better really depends on the situation in which you're using them. Macs are better at graphics design and things like that (I believe it has something to do with the RISK cpu or something, certain commonly accessed computations are stored directly in the chip or some such), but PC's are far more easily upgradable and are better for computer games and perhaps basic word processing. You can make a PC from your own components quite easily, faster and cheaper than store bought ones, but you can't do that with Macs. How would you get the lamp case off? My sister is just finishing an art degree at the college here and all the computer they use at her campus are Macs. But if you go to the other campus where I do A-Levels, everything is on PC's (and arcane ones at that, I might add). Oh, and I don't know what system configurations you guys are graced with to have so few crashes, but I get about 3 crashes on my XP system a day. For some reason I can't play any games involving the mystical third dimension, which defeats my computer; they last for 2-3 minutes then *blue screen* arrrrgh!! I bought a new graphics card for about £120 to fix the problem (my old one was really just a collection of greasy wires) and it made no difference, although the games look absolutely wicked for the two minutes that they actually work. I've had enough Civilization 3 now to last me till the end of my presidential retirement in 2020 AD, thank you...
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Yes indeed. I've always used Macs really and so I find them vastly superior to PCs in many respects. The RISC architecture is generally a better one (imo) but again, it's completely down to what you're doing and your own personal prefence. In regard to the frequent crashes, XP is rather silly like that, I've had quite a few problems with my Radeon; all I can suggest is to either (a) find new drivers for your graphics card or (b) reformat, which seems to be the universal "solve everything that's wrong with windows" technique.
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 but macintosh computers are more expensive though... Albert
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Well, yes. But generally they're of a very high build quality (with the possible exception of the G4 cube) and they're very nice to look at
J'Dona Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Yeah, I'll probably reformat some time soon. That "You've got trojans!" popup every half hour is another good reason for it. Macs may be more expensive, but if they are better then that makes sense. Although they only are in certain cases, of course. It's interesting because some people might think that Macs are expensive for their speed (as guessed at by their CPU speed), although the listed speed for RISC cpu's is about half the equivalent of PC cpu's. In other words a 1 gigahertz Mac cpu is roughly equivalent to a 2 gigahertz PC cpu, I believe. Most of the new G4 models and such are dual processors too, thought some might not notice. Although it's really quite obvious why Macs are more expensive... you're paying that extra for the case.
albertlee Posted June 2, 2004 Author Posted June 2, 2004 So, dave, What is the advantage of RISC and CISC? on the aspects of software and hardware? ALbert
Dave Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 To be perfectly honest, I'm not an expert in different types of architecture. I can't really help you with that.
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