MarcUK: That depends on what you define "serious work" on a Mac as. If you define it only as graphics work then you might have a point. Then again there are graphics people working just fine within Classic and more gfx apps are being Carbonized as time goes on.
On the other hand there's a whole new breed of Mac professionals. Unix guys. They've probably been doing "serious work" from Mac OS X since the Public Beta. Network Admins, programmers, database admins....etc. I know a ton of these kind of people who have bought iBooks (both the old clamshell and new iceBooks) simply because of OS X.
OS 9? No way. I admister 15 macs in our center and I would love to move them all to OS X. The problem is that many of the Macs are old 266 G3s and are too slow for OS X. Those must stay in OS 9 I am afraid. I run OS X with 640 MB Ram on a B/W G3 350 and I feel that it is fine. As good as OS 9. It may not be faster at certain things (what things I don't know) but the advantages of OS X are great. First, we work in a 50-50 Mac/PC enviroment. With OS X I can see all the PC with Sharity (free as we are a educational insitution) and with Samba (which is dead easy to set up) I can share folders with the PCs. Also, zero crashes. OS 9, at best will crash once a week. People always complain to me about this. Win 2000 does not do this so people complain.
Also, I have recently installed OS X on a professors Cube and it runs amazing. I have installed 1.2 gigs of Ram which helps alot. OS X loves Ram and that is the best way to increase performace. Almost all apps (word, exploder, etc) open in 1-2 bounces. Everything is fast as well. Windows open nicely and the column view makes file navigation easy. Much quicker than OS 9. And stabilty, this professor is horrible with computers. He would crash his Cube 2-3 times a day before OS X. You know those people who can do the most amazing horrific thing to computers - this guy it death to most computers. With OS X, uptime has been over 14 days (I installed it 14 days ago). I will reboot Monday while upgrading to 10.1.2.
OS 9 has its place but if you can use OS X. Do it. It is the best OS I have ever used. Yes there are things that could use improvement - spring loaded folders, that PPP bug - just to name a few (and there are many more) - but overall OS X right now is the best OS for our needs.
<strong>I'm going back to 9. Then when I'm ready I'm buying other hardware. Going back in Intel I guess. Linux for me. Apple sucks. Took me 3 years to figure it out.
BTW there was a thread at MacNN that had an Applescript to remove OS X. Anyone have that? I'd search other there but they don't have the threads from the "old" forums, right?</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, they're all there. Search the current OS X forums, although it's probably in one of the OS X archives now (check Archives section).
[quote] If you have anything slower than a 500MHz G3 and 256MB of RAM, don't bother with OS X. It's a next generation operating system not meant to run on previous generation hardware, and most of the complaints I hear about OS X's speed come from individuals with older machines. <hr></blockquote>
I installed OS X 10.1.2 on my Beige G3/300 Mhz/384 MB and it isn't too bad. But...
Because I have an Epson Color 800, there are no drivers for OS X, and there won't be. On top of that, I can't even print in Classic. So, I launch OS X about every other day, surf the web, read email, and listen to iTunes, but without a printer that works in either OS X or Classic, it's not real practical for me.
And 9.2.2 is very nice - not once has it crashed or caused problems. So for everyday work, I'm with 9.2.2 (FrameMaker, Nisus Writer, PageMaker, Office 2001 - yes, they all work in Classic, but no printer, remember?)
(BTW, don't have Norton File Saver enabled - Classic can't launch with it enabled. I found out the hard way.)
Originally posted by francisG3: [quote]OS X has one HUGE disadvantage: It is slow. I'd guess about 85-90% as fast as OS9, and I'm running a G4 450, with 512M of RAM.<hr></blockquote> OS X is way faster. Sure, the interface may be a little slower, but try to multitask in OS 9?you can't. Hold down a menu and everything halts to a stop. How is this faster?
[quote]Also, I find OS 9 quite stable. Matter of fact, it hasn't crashed in about six weeks. <hr></blockquote>I also found OS 9 to be quite stable till I ran OS X. Six weeks you say? OS X 10 hasn't crashed. At all. Ever. Period.
I must admit, living in OS 9 is far more frustrating than it used to be. I just got my old iMac up and running in OS 9 again (my daily mac is an iBook running OS X 10.1.2) and its frustrating in its own ways. The difference is that OS X will improve on its shortcomings, and those are mostly either stuff I haven't ever used before (such as a journaled filesystem) or stuff that needs some tune-ups (the usual Finder rant here).
Basically, whatever boat Scott H is in right now, I'm in the the one going the other way. I returned to the Mac for OS X, and have not been disappointed.
<strong>even with newer g4s, osx is slow. that's a fact. aqua is unpolished, and it careless about user expereience. as far as speed issue, if apple has just provided options to turn off transparency , shadow , other eye candy stuffs and each new window open didnt eat up 1.5MB of ram im sure there would be far less people on g3 complaining about speed. try shadow killer and u'll see the difference esp for g3 owners.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Most claims made about OS X's speed are subjective. I find it quite responsive, although things do slow down from time to time, and it may feel slow to some people all the time. I do not find Aqua any less unsable than Platinum however. OS X is far more aesthetically pleasing than 9 ever was. Drop shadows may not impact your work, but they do have an impact on your psyche. Few GUIs are as fun to use. That's not to say OS X is a toy. The OS X Finder completely creams the one in OS 9 interms of flexability, power, and features. The Dock is great as well. As an application switcher, it is just as good as the little menu/window in OS 9. The ability to minimize an window into the Dock (One nice feature stolen from Windows) keeps my workspace clean and organized. I am no longer forced to sort through a myriad of stacked and collasped windows to find what I'm looking for. It really slowed me down when I used OS 9. The Dock provides as fast access to shortcuts as the Apple menu, and it spares you from having to open the a folder to add/reorginize its contents. This feature also saves time. Many of you, myself included, find the Dock distracting and often intrusive while working. Hide it. Problem solved. This makes the Dock almost perfect, except for one thing. No spring loaded folders. I personally don't care much for them, but I do see how that can be quite useful. If Apple just added this to the Dock and something to the extent of a control strip elsewhere, OS 9 would have nothing over OS X. All of this of course is my subjective opinion. Some of you feel differently and I guess I can't make you like OS X. That is Apple's job after all. OS 9 is great, I just like OS X a little more.
So X seems to be mostly gone on my system. I use multi-user in OS 9 and the login time, which was always slow in with OS X installed, is much much faster now. X did something to OS 9 that crippled multi-user in a way. OS X sucks. Delete it and be free.
My primary machine (PowerBook G4/500) I have been using OSX full time since it came out. I design web site professionally so I use Photoshop, GoLive, BBEdit, etc.
Since many of my Photoshop files are so large (20mb +) OS 9.x would occasionally crash on me. Probably about once a week. Photoshop still crashes in OSX but it only takes down OS9. Also, OSX has never crashed on me!
I do need to admit that I have another machine sitting beside my laptop at the office. My G3/450 is running OS9.2. Why? There ARE some apps that will not run acceptably on OSX.
Here is take on OSX.
GOOD:
Multitasking - better than OS9, Win9x, Win2000 Apache, PHP, mySQL
Speed - OSX itself IS fast
GUI - once I got used to the GUI I am more comfortable in it than I am OS9
BAD:
Lack of native apps - OSX NEEDS native apps ported to it NOW. Photoshop and GoLive performe adequately but not nearly up to par.
Fear of change - Let's face it, many people were happy with OS9 and they aren't very thrilled about OSX. There's no changing this!
Missing Features - OSX still misses many features that OS9 has. While change isn't always bad...taking away features is! I know they are coming but when?
Missing Palm Desktop - What a big mistake. If Palm doesn't have the money Apple NEEDS to port the Palm desktop and take control of it. Palm did say it would be out by year's end....riiiiight!
With this said, Apple is doing the right thing telling the general public that OSX will ship as default in March 2002. In other words, get your applications done!!!
I've been using OS X on my iMac at home for a good three months or so now. At home, all I really do is surf, e-mail and use Adobe Illustrator 10, which is now OS X native.
But at work, on my G4, I can't quite bring myself to using OS X 24/7 because when I'm using Photoshop and QuarkXPress in Classic, I just have too many little weird glitches or hangups, ESPECIALLY in QuarkXPress. TONS of screen redraw issues, palettes "ghosting", etc. I waste a lot of time closing and reopening windows and files to "clear the cobwebs out", so it's a productivity/efficiency killer at this point.
Through most of November, I used X at work, but as our schedule and projects got more hectic toward Thanksgiving and into most of December, I booted back straight into OS 9 from Thanksgiving until Friday, just so I could get stuff done with the least hassle and weirdness possible.
Personally, I think OS X absolutely rocks (I haven't launched Classic or booted into OS 9 here at home since October or so!). But until the programs I use at work ARE OS X native and I can say goodbye to OS 9 once and for all, I'm going to be a bit reluctant.
I use it at home, so I'm totally up on it and know "how to use it", so next year when more major league apps are out in X-native versions, it's not going to be any sort of big learning curve for me.
Yes, I'm looking VERY forward to the day when I can use OS X 24/7 at work, just as I am at home, because right now I feel like I'm using two computers and two sets of rules and two ways of doing everything and sometimes it gets old.
I figure by March or so, it'll be a non-issue.
Hell, we've waited THIS long, what's three more months, right?
I have to say, a huge problem I find difficult is that even with native apps, they aren't ported over very well. For example, Office X is glacial in X compared to Office 2001 in OS 9. VirtualPC 5 in X doesn't run as well as in OS 9, I know a lot of people say it's because they are badly ported Carbon apps and not well written Carbon or pure Cocoa apps, so I'm not dissing the OS, just that I wish developers will get on the ball. Instead of just changing a few API's so that app borderline qualifies as OS X compliant, how about *true* native OS X apps that take advantage of OS X and all the wonderful things this bold new OS has to offer? At this point, it feels like we are getting all the disadvantages of X (ie. slower system because of Quartz rendering, preemptive multitasking) without the advantages (ie. *full* services, premptive multitasking)
A simple example is this, go to Explorer for OS X - start loading up a page, and then go to the top menu bar and click and hold - when you do that, the web page stops loading, I thought the whole point of OS X was that we no longer had to deal with system inefficiencies such as this. An OS is only as good as its killer apps, and when its killer apps aren't taking full advantage of what the OS can do, then it's difficult for it to truly shine.
<strong>A simple example is this, go to Explorer for OS X - start loading up a page, and then go to the top menu bar and click and hold - when you do that, the web page stops loading, I thought the whole point of OS X was that we no longer had to deal with system inefficiencies such as this. An OS is only as good as its killer apps, and when its killer apps aren't taking full advantage of what the OS can do, then it's difficult for it to truly shine.
<strong>The question is wether you make your money from a mac or are a home user?. Many of you loathing OS9 probably don't do serious work on your mac that would make a difference in your wallet. I loved OSX for general run of the mill stuff like browsing, email, word processing etc messing around with stuff, Its very good at that and looks nice and function great, but the real problem is lack of leading apps or leading apps that have had a bad carbonisation... And the Dock which doesn't help at all with full screen apps.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Gee, you touched on a lot of things I would have said about OS X there...
I have "played" with OS X. Until everyone (especially Adobe, Macromedia and Quark) comes out with virtually bug free apps I won't even bother with OS X.
Right now it's:
OS 9.2.2 = Serious Work
OS 10.1.2 = Geek fun
...and the ever occuring update download...
My major dislike of OS X...drop shadows...why the hell do I need these? Stupid. This is an OS...not a web site.
Also, using OS X on an iMac (G3 700, 768 MB RAM) runs great but the GUI is definately crowded even on a 1024 X 768 screen. I only can see real good GUI real estate on an Apple Cinematic Display or TiBook 1024 X 768 screen.
Comments
On the other hand there's a whole new breed of Mac professionals. Unix guys. They've probably been doing "serious work" from Mac OS X since the Public Beta. Network Admins, programmers, database admins....etc. I know a ton of these kind of people who have bought iBooks (both the old clamshell and new iceBooks) simply because of OS X.
Also, I have recently installed OS X on a professors Cube and it runs amazing. I have installed 1.2 gigs of Ram which helps alot. OS X loves Ram and that is the best way to increase performace. Almost all apps (word, exploder, etc) open in 1-2 bounces. Everything is fast as well. Windows open nicely and the column view makes file navigation easy. Much quicker than OS 9. And stabilty, this professor is horrible with computers. He would crash his Cube 2-3 times a day before OS X. You know those people who can do the most amazing horrific thing to computers - this guy it death to most computers. With OS X, uptime has been over 14 days (I installed it 14 days ago). I will reboot Monday while upgrading to 10.1.2.
OS 9 has its place but if you can use OS X. Do it. It is the best OS I have ever used. Yes there are things that could use improvement - spring loaded folders, that PPP bug - just to name a few (and there are many more) - but overall OS X right now is the best OS for our needs.
Sorry for the long rant.
(:
<strong>I'm going back to 9. Then when I'm ready I'm buying other hardware. Going back in Intel I guess. Linux for me. Apple sucks. Took me 3 years to figure it out.
BTW there was a thread at MacNN that had an Applescript to remove OS X. Anyone have that? I'd search other there but they don't have the threads from the "old" forums, right?</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, they're all there. Search the current OS X forums, although it's probably in one of the OS X archives now (check Archives section).
[code] property root_items : {"bin", "dev", "Network", "private", ¬
\t"sbin", "usr", "Volumes", ".DS_Store", ".hidden", "cores", ¬
\t"etc", "tmp", "var", "Applications", "Developer", ¬
\t"Library", "mach", "mach.sym", "mach_kernel", "System", "Users"}
property systemfolder_items : {"Classic", "Classic Support", ¬
\t"Classic Support UI", "ProxyApp"}
tell application "Finder"
\tactivate
\ttry
\t\tset this_version to the version as string
\t\tif this_version does not start with "9" or ¬
\t\t\tthis_version is not greater than or equal to "9.1" then ¬
\t\t\terror "This script requires a Mac OS 9.x system greater than 9.0.4."
\t\tdisplay dialog "This script will move Mac OS X items from the startup disk to the trash."
\t\trepeat with i from 1 to the count of the root_items
\t\t\tset this_item to item i of the root_items
\t\t\tif exists (item this_item of the startup disk) then
\t\t\t\tdelete item this_item of the startup disk
\t\t\tend if
\t\tend repeat
\t\trepeat with i from 1 to the count of the systemfolder_items
\t\t\tset this_item to item i of the systemfolder_items
\t\t\tif exists (item this_item of the system folder) then
\t\t\t\tdelete item this_item of the system folder
\t\t\tend if
\t\tend repeat
\t\tbeep
\t\tdisplay dialog "The Mac OS X items have been placed in the Trash."
\ton error error_message number error_number
\t\tif the error_number is not -128 then
\t\t\tbeep
\t\t\tdisplay dialog error_message buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1
\t\tend if
\tend try
end tell </pre><hr></blockquote>
Run it in 9.x
Enjoy your X-Free goodness. I just used it. Goodbye, slow, bloated, immature OS...
1) He's an idiot. (He doesn't like starting up classic to watch his south park episodes and he's confused by OSX)
2) God hates me. (He gets a goddam TiBook and he can't even figure out how to use it. Meanwhile, I would use it like crazy and I don't get one)
I installed OS X 10.1.2 on my Beige G3/300 Mhz/384 MB and it isn't too bad. But...
Because I have an Epson Color 800, there are no drivers for OS X, and there won't be. On top of that, I can't even print in Classic. So, I launch OS X about every other day, surf the web, read email, and listen to iTunes, but without a printer that works in either OS X or Classic, it's not real practical for me.
And 9.2.2 is very nice - not once has it crashed or caused problems. So for everyday work, I'm with 9.2.2 (FrameMaker, Nisus Writer, PageMaker, Office 2001 - yes, they all work in Classic, but no printer, remember?)
(BTW, don't have Norton File Saver enabled - Classic can't launch with it enabled. I found out the hard way.)
[quote]Also, I find OS 9 quite stable. Matter of fact, it hasn't crashed in about six weeks. <hr></blockquote>I also found OS 9 to be quite stable till I ran OS X. Six weeks you say? OS X 10 hasn't crashed. At all. Ever. Period.
Basically, whatever boat Scott H is in right now, I'm in the the one going the other way. I returned to the Mac for OS X, and have not been disappointed.
<strong>even with newer g4s, osx is slow. that's a fact. aqua is unpolished, and it careless about user expereience. as far as speed issue, if apple has just provided options to turn off transparency , shadow , other eye candy stuffs and each new window open didnt eat up 1.5MB of ram im sure there would be far less people on g3 complaining about speed. try shadow killer and u'll see the difference esp for g3 owners.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Most claims made about OS X's speed are subjective. I find it quite responsive, although things do slow down from time to time, and it may feel slow to some people all the time. I do not find Aqua any less unsable than Platinum however. OS X is far more aesthetically pleasing than 9 ever was. Drop shadows may not impact your work, but they do have an impact on your psyche. Few GUIs are as fun to use. That's not to say OS X is a toy. The OS X Finder completely creams the one in OS 9 interms of flexability, power, and features. The Dock is great as well. As an application switcher, it is just as good as the little menu/window in OS 9. The ability to minimize an window into the Dock (One nice feature stolen from Windows) keeps my workspace clean and organized. I am no longer forced to sort through a myriad of stacked and collasped windows to find what I'm looking for. It really slowed me down when I used OS 9. The Dock provides as fast access to shortcuts as the Apple menu, and it spares you from having to open the a folder to add/reorginize its contents. This feature also saves time. Many of you, myself included, find the Dock distracting and often intrusive while working. Hide it. Problem solved. This makes the Dock almost perfect, except for one thing. No spring loaded folders. I personally don't care much for them, but I do see how that can be quite useful. If Apple just added this to the Dock and something to the extent of a control strip elsewhere, OS 9 would have nothing over OS X. All of this of course is my subjective opinion.
<strong>
Run it in 9.x
Enjoy your X-Free goodness. I just used it. Goodbye, slow, bloated, immature OS...</strong><hr></blockquote>
You should remove "Users" from the list as OS 9 and OS X use the same "Users" folder. For those of us that use multi-user in OS 9.
When:
1) I need to do firmware update (which is rarely)
2) Mount those Shrink Wrap image file. Stuffit Expander can mount those image only when boot from 9. Not X
Since many of my Photoshop files are so large (20mb +) OS 9.x would occasionally crash on me. Probably about once a week. Photoshop still crashes in OSX but it only takes down OS9. Also, OSX has never crashed on me!
I do need to admit that I have another machine sitting beside my laptop at the office. My G3/450 is running OS9.2. Why? There ARE some apps that will not run acceptably on OSX.
Here is take on OSX.
GOOD:
Multitasking - better than OS9, Win9x, Win2000 Apache, PHP, mySQL
Speed - OSX itself IS fast
GUI - once I got used to the GUI I am more comfortable in it than I am OS9
BAD:
Lack of native apps - OSX NEEDS native apps ported to it NOW. Photoshop and GoLive performe adequately but not nearly up to par.
Fear of change - Let's face it, many people were happy with OS9 and they aren't very thrilled about OSX. There's no changing this!
Missing Features - OSX still misses many features that OS9 has. While change isn't always bad...taking away features is! I know they are coming but when?
Missing Palm Desktop - What a big mistake. If Palm doesn't have the money Apple NEEDS to port the Palm desktop and take control of it. Palm did say it would be out by year's end....riiiiight!
With this said, Apple is doing the right thing telling the general public that OSX will ship as default in March 2002. In other words, get your applications done!!!
[ 12-23-2001: Message edited by: Mike ]</p>
But at work, on my G4, I can't quite bring myself to using OS X 24/7 because when I'm using Photoshop and QuarkXPress in Classic, I just have too many little weird glitches or hangups, ESPECIALLY in QuarkXPress. TONS of screen redraw issues, palettes "ghosting", etc. I waste a lot of time closing and reopening windows and files to "clear the cobwebs out", so it's a productivity/efficiency killer at this point.
Through most of November, I used X at work, but as our schedule and projects got more hectic toward Thanksgiving and into most of December, I booted back straight into OS 9 from Thanksgiving until Friday, just so I could get stuff done with the least hassle and weirdness possible.
Personally, I think OS X absolutely rocks (I haven't launched Classic or booted into OS 9 here at home since October or so!). But until the programs I use at work ARE OS X native and I can say goodbye to OS 9 once and for all, I'm going to be a bit reluctant.
I use it at home, so I'm totally up on it and know "how to use it", so next year when more major league apps are out in X-native versions, it's not going to be any sort of big learning curve for me.
Yes, I'm looking VERY forward to the day when I can use OS X 24/7 at work, just as I am at home, because right now I feel like I'm using two computers and two sets of rules and two ways of doing everything and sometimes it gets old.
I figure by March or so, it'll be a non-issue.
Hell, we've waited THIS long, what's three more months, right?
A simple example is this, go to Explorer for OS X - start loading up a page, and then go to the top menu bar and click and hold - when you do that, the web page stops loading, I thought the whole point of OS X was that we no longer had to deal with system inefficiencies such as this. An OS is only as good as its killer apps, and when its killer apps aren't taking full advantage of what the OS can do, then it's difficult for it to truly shine.
[ 12-23-2001: Message edited by: Kestral ]</p>
<strong>A simple example is this, go to Explorer for OS X - start loading up a page, and then go to the top menu bar and click and hold - when you do that, the web page stops loading, I thought the whole point of OS X was that we no longer had to deal with system inefficiencies such as this. An OS is only as good as its killer apps, and when its killer apps aren't taking full advantage of what the OS can do, then it's difficult for it to truly shine.
[ 12-23-2001: Message edited by: Kestral ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is why IE is not my default browser. I've found Mozilla and Omniweb better than IE. If only Omniweb would add tabbed browsing!
OSX really opens the door for other developer's apps.
<strong>The question is wether you make your money from a mac or are a home user?. Many of you loathing OS9 probably don't do serious work on your mac that would make a difference in your wallet. I loved OSX for general run of the mill stuff like browsing, email, word processing etc messing around with stuff, Its very good at that and looks nice and function great, but the real problem is lack of leading apps or leading apps that have had a bad carbonisation... And the Dock
Gee, you touched on a lot of things I would have said about OS X there...
I have "played" with OS X. Until everyone (especially Adobe, Macromedia and Quark) comes out with virtually bug free apps I won't even bother with OS X.
Right now it's:
OS 9.2.2 = Serious Work
OS 10.1.2 = Geek fun
...and the ever occuring update download...
My major dislike of OS X...drop shadows...why the hell do I need these? Stupid. This is an OS...not a web site.
Also, using OS X on an iMac (G3 700, 768 MB RAM) runs great but the GUI is definately crowded even on a 1024 X 768 screen. I only can see real good GUI real estate on an Apple Cinematic Display or TiBook 1024 X 768 screen.