Mac OSX

[Zarick]

Im thinking of getting out of windows. I can say that its been okay but not real great. Though xp is an improvement.
I was wondering if someone could tell me about mac osx.

Can Mac OS X be used on a standard pc?
If you use MAC OS X does that mean you now can only buy mac software?

How does MAC OS X compare to windows xp?

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Mac OSX can work on an x86 machine, but the version that does isn't available to the public. If you want to run Mac OSX you have to run it on a Mac. You can use much more than just Apple software. As for comparing the XP and OSX side by side, I don't think someone can really do that subjectively or fairly. They are two completely different operating systems that work on two different architectures.

 

[Nothinman]

Can Mac OS X be used on a standard pc?

No. Apple is a hardware company, they make most of their cash from hardware sales so they have no reason to port OS X to anything they don't control.

There was rumors of Apple moving from Motorol a PPC chips to IBM Power4 64-bit PPC chips, but unless something really bad happens to Apple financially there won't be OS X on x86 any time soon.

I'd personally prefer the PPC architecture over x86 anyway.

If you use MAC OS X does that mean you now can only buy mac software?

Yes and no. You need software that is compiled to run on OS X and the PPC architecture. But most unix apps run just fine (since OS X is unix based) and if you really need a Windows-only app you can purchase VirtualPC and run Windows inside of there, given enough memory and the fact that all the current PowerMacs are dual processor it will run just fine.

How does MAC OS X compare to windows xp?

Totally subjective, but I think it blows it away. Just the fact that it's unix based makes it tons better. If Mac hardware was cheaper I'd own atleast 1 myself.

 

[wjsulliv]

If your going to look at X make sure your looking at OS 10.2. Which is the new jaguar release.

Hopefully MAC peripherals and software will begin to drop in price now that the OS is based on an open source OS.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: wjsulliv
If your going to look at X make sure your looking at OS 10.2. Which is the new jaguar release.

Hopefully MAC peripherals and software will begin to drop in price now that the OS is based on an open source OS.

There are plenty of reasonably priced Macintosh peripherals. Video cards seem to be the biggie, but there are ways to make some x86 based video cards work in PPC based systems.

 

[Gunnar]

I personally think its the best flavor of *nix out there. And compared to winxp, it totally rocks (IMO), and Im running an ancient PBG3/233. If you are a power user, Id wait until after october to see whats up with those IBM chips, otherwise its always a good time to buy a mac! Personally, I think the power available is way more than anyone needs regularly anyway.

If you are pretty savvy with unix, you can probably compile most anything written for a POSIX standard (or better yet FreeBSD) operating system and it will run from the CLI.

I wish I had a 17in Imac with an iPod.....