[PLUG] Mac OSX contrasted with Linux and Win2000?

Kelly Guimont verso at mac.com
Tue Jul 23 03:13:38 UTC 2002


I have considerable experience with OSX (I signed up at the Public Beta
phase) and I have spent some time in *nix as well, so if you would let me
know what sort of issues you are interested in I'll do my best to fill you
in. (See below)

OSX comes in two pieces, essentially. There's the guts, called Darwin, which
is the *nix stuff. Underpinnings (I think) is the word Apple uses. Darwin is
based on BSD, but is propietary (which is how they get away with charging
for it). Aqua is the second piece of the OS. Aqua is the UI portion of
things. This is the part you see, but is not necessarily what you are stuck
with. I have heard tell of others using different window managers aside from
Aqua, and I know that you can boot OSX into single user mode, enable root,
run fsck, and all sorts of other groovy *nixy stuff with Terminal.

One of the things I think is most impressive about OSX (It's pronounced oh
ess ten, btw) is what they call "Classic". This is the ability of OSX to run
an emulation layer of OS9, the 'old' OS. It's not as big a deal now that the
Big Ones have OSX versions (Photoshop, Office, etc) but if you still need
something from OS9 there's nothing standing in the way of your forward
migration. To build a native emulator of an entire OS into the system itself
is pretty gol-danged cool.

My experience with OSX vs. Win2k is as follows:

I have both in my office right now. I use OSX and my husband uses the
Wintendo (as I lovingly refer to it). He restarts his all the time. Things
happen, stuff just up and breaks, etc. He knows to do preventative
maintenance on his machine because I won't help him with it if he doesn't.
(: I restart mine when I have a software update that requires it. And even
then I store up a bunch of them. This is nowhere near as often. I mean, not
even once a month. I don't run Outlook or IIS so I don't get the virus du
jour. I don't have any problems with file compatibility or with trying to do
things on my Mac that he can do on his machine, and I don't have to go
through any sort of gyration most of the time. In fact, I run as the
fileserver on our network because it's easier to set up and less work to
admin my machine than it is to set him up the same way. I have only ever
worried about my computer freaking out when my hard drive began to swallow
itself whole. Usually I want to hug my computer. My husband usually wants to
hit his.

Wow I got long-winded! This help? (:

-Kelly
R-17 is not a fixed velocity, but it is clearly far too fast.  -H2G2

On 7/22/02 7:13 PM, "Greg Long" <plug at maneuveringspeed.com> wrote:

> I have a paper to write constrasting MacOSX and Windows 2000.  I also
> wanted to contrast Mac OS with Linux, and on GUI issues Gnome (Redhat
> 7.x specifically if a distro is needed, as that is where most of my
> Linux experience is.
> 
> Would welcome any input from those experienced in Linux and MacOSX - My
> experience with all Win32 is considerable (except Me which I considered
> a waste of resources - both electronic and financial).  My experience
> with all flavors of Max OS is nil.  Oh, yes, feel free to throw in your
> $.02 comparing MacOSX and Win2k as well :)
> 
> I understand MacOSX runs on on what is essentially a proprietary
> BSD-like OS?
> 
> Thanks,
> Greg
> 
> 
> 
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