Poll: Will the Mac OS ever overtake Windows OS?

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That statement makes no sense. They have 95% of the market share. They're so far ahead of 'the little guys' it's a joke.

In marketshare that's true, but in real technology that's questionable.

I'm a Linux fan and I'm posting from Ubuntu right now. However, you can't beat Windows for hardware and software compatibility (I don't mean out of the box - just overall support).

 

[Nothinman]

I'm a Linux fan and I'm posting from Ubuntu right now. However, you can't beat Windows for hardware and software compatibility (I don't mean out of the box - just overall support).

Even if that's true, and I don't believe that it is, that's only a small part of it. MS was the last to have a hardware accelerated desktop with composition and now that they do have an implementation it's not as useful and has much higher hardware requirements than XGL/AIGLX. WinFS has been trimmed down the point of being a userspace filesystem indexing tool ala Beagle. MS just released full drive encryption with BitLocker but IIRC it requires Vista Ultimate and Linux has had dm-crypt and loop-aes for quite some time now. The "bread crumb" paths in Vista's explorer were pretty much stolen from Nautilus. MS just now moved large chunks of their video and sound systems to userspace for reliability like X and ALSA.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

As for Linux, Linux has some severe problems that it has to overcome. First of all, Linux isn't designed for the average person. Applications for Linux are buggy, lack features, and have spotty support. It's not a cohesive package, it's a bunch of programs thrown together with well-wishes from the developer. It's just not designed for end-users. There are no killer apps. There's too much variation.

Most of my linux apps are less buggy then my windows ones. I think linux has "killer apps" right in their repos that would require me to compile from source on windows (and hope it works). I am a geek though, so my demands are different. My wife though...as long as her videos play online, and she can play music, check email, and surf the web she is fine. She currently does all of that on a deb box, and only misses windows because she doesn't want people to think she is a geek.

 

[TBSN]

"Will the MAC OS overtake Windows OS?"

It already has, in that is a better thought out and supported OS.

 

[Nothinman]

It already has, in that is a better thought out and supported OS.

That's debatable just because of the fact that they took a unix system, replaced X with a completetly closed and incompatible windowing system.

 

[gwag]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: gwag
its funny MS has 95% of the market share tons of cash for R&D and they can't even stay ahead of the little guys OS wise.

That statement makes no sense. They have 95% of the market share. They're so far ahead of 'the little guys' it's a joke.

maybe in your world but in mine Vista was just about catching up to OS X.
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=45037

 

[L00ker]

I still don't understand (aside from the software side of it) why people seem to think that a Mac box costs more than a standard dell or hp box? I mean now that they are both x86 platforms you can finally compare apples to apples and they generally end up being slightly cheaper for the money. Plus the thing people seem to ignore is that the hardware in mac boxes is generally higher end stuff unlike the base model dells and hp's...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: L00ker
I still don't understand (aside from the software side of it) why people seem to think that a Mac box costs more than a standard dell or hp box? I mean now that they are both x86 platforms you can finally compare apples to apples and they generally end up being slightly cheaper for the money. Plus the thing people seem to ignore is that the hardware in mac boxes is generally higher end stuff unlike the base model dells and hp's...

Are you sure about that?

1. Keep in mind that Apple is using the same generic Intel parts and has their laptops made on the same assembly lines by the same people as Dell or HP.

2. For 1,100 gets me:
From Dell:
AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 5000+
Windows Vista? Home
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs edit
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
8X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

From Apple:
(Imac)
1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512
Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Intel GMA 950 graphics with 64MB of shared memory
24x Combo Drive (DVD-ROM, CD-RW)
17-inch widescreen LCD

or...
(Mac Mini)
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo
512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x256
60GB Serial ATA drive
Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel)
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Intel GMA 950 graphics

And the Mac Mini was about 200 dollars more expensive then the Dell.

Apple's stuff definately has a premium associated with it.

 

[gwag]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: L00ker
I still don't understand (aside from the software side of it) why people seem to think that a Mac box costs more than a standard dell or hp box? I mean now that they are both x86 platforms you can finally compare apples to apples and they generally end up being slightly cheaper for the money. Plus the thing people seem to ignore is that the hardware in mac boxes is generally higher end stuff unlike the base model dells and hp's...

Are you sure about that?

1. Keep in mind that Apple is using the same generic Intel parts and has their laptops made on the same assembly lines by the same people as Dell or HP.

2. For 1,100 gets me:
From Dell:
AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 5000+
Windows Vista? Home
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs edit
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
8X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

From Apple:
(Imac)
1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512
Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Intel GMA 950 graphics with 64MB of shared memory
24x Combo Drive (DVD-ROM, CD-RW)
17-inch widescreen LCD

or...
(Mac Mini)
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo
512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x256
60GB Serial ATA drive
Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel)
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Intel GMA 950 graphics

And the Mac Mini was about 200 dollars more expensive then the Dell.

Apple's stuff definately has a premium associated with it.

comparing small form factor machines with clean lines, no wire clutter, and more expensive laptop parts to the AMD system?
try something that can actually be compared like a workstation:
DELL: $3022.00
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333
Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media
128MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro NVS 285, Dual DVI or Dual VGA Capable
1GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 533MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)
16X DVD+/-RW Roxio and Cyberlink PowerDVD? for Vista Business
C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 or 2 drive total configuration
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM NCQ Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache?
No Monitor

APPLE: $2499
same config
plus a better video card.

and you can't run OS X on that Dell.
also whats this 5000+ stuff what are they comparing themselves to now, does that mean its as fast as 5000Mhz Pentium 4?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: ntdz

Originally posted by: aidanjm
no, but linux variants will. particularly in the third world and europe, where governments are wising up to the dangers of the M$ tax and realizing the benefits to be gained from widespread adoption of open source software. this will occur within the next 10 years.

I'll bet you everything you own that Linux doesn't overtake Windows in 10 years. I'm not even sure it'll gain any significant amount of market share.

Unless a miracle happens, the Mac OS has a better chance than Linux.

 

[TJones2]

Yes. When Apple makes OS X open source to run on any PC.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: gwag

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: L00ker
I still don't understand (aside from the software side of it) why people seem to think that a Mac box costs more than a standard dell or hp box? I mean now that they are both x86 platforms you can finally compare apples to apples and they generally end up being slightly cheaper for the money. Plus the thing people seem to ignore is that the hardware in mac boxes is generally higher end stuff unlike the base model dells and hp's...

Are you sure about that?

1. Keep in mind that Apple is using the same generic Intel parts and has their laptops made on the same assembly lines by the same people as Dell or HP.

2. For 1,100 gets me:
From Dell:
AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 5000+
Windows Vista? Home
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs edit
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
8X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

From Apple:
(Imac)
1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512
Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Intel GMA 950 graphics with 64MB of shared memory
24x Combo Drive (DVD-ROM, CD-RW)
17-inch widescreen LCD

or...
(Mac Mini)
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo
512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x256
60GB Serial ATA drive
Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel)
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Intel GMA 950 graphics

And the Mac Mini was about 200 dollars more expensive then the Dell.

Apple's stuff definately has a premium associated with it.

comparing small form factor machines with clean lines, no wire clutter, and more expensive laptop parts to the AMD system?

Yes absolutely.

[/quote]
try something that can actually be compared like a workstation:
DELL: $3022.00
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333
Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media
128MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro NVS 285, Dual DVI or Dual VGA Capable
1GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 533MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)
16X DVD+/-RW Roxio and Cyberlink PowerDVD? for Vista Business
C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 or 2 drive total configuration
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM NCQ Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache?
No Monitor

APPLE: $2499
same config
plus a better video card.

and you can't run OS X on that Dell.
also whats this 5000+ stuff what are they comparing themselves to now, does that mean its as fast as 5000Mhz Pentium 4?[/quote]

No it's a 2.8 chip that is much more powerfull then the Intel 3.0ghz chips. That's all.
Frequency is fairly irrellevent nowadays, the AMD cpus are much more efficient per clock then the P4/Xeon stuff of those types..



And you want to compare workstations? I sincerly don't think you want to go there...

Linux workstation (pogolinux)
2 QuadCore Xeon proccessors. 8 cores of the newer types, much more efficient then the previous Xeons.
16gigs of RAM
4 750gig drives.
REAL hardware RAID with Cache AND battery backup, SATA.
2 DVD burners
Nvidia 7900gs
20 inch lcd.
$10100

Same thing, but with the Dual core AMD 5200+ instead comes out to about $7800 or so.

These things are comparable, but out perform, the Intel Macpro maxed out, which comes out to over $12,000

Oh, and with first machine I also selected the support contract that way 2 years onsite support.


For the low end Mac workstation. I selected a comparable configuration for the Dual Dual core Opteron proccessors.
Dual AMD Opteron 2218 Processors (2.6Ghz Dual Core)
2GB 667 MHz DDR2 ECC FBD Memory
500GB 7200 RPM SATA-II Hard Drive
Asus N7300/TD GeForce EN7300GS/HTD/256M

So I get faster proccessor, twice the ram, twice the storage capacity for the same price.


Those Dells and HPs workstaions are for big business stuff and have quite a premium themselves, it's probably better for you to go and look at other people's stuff also.

 

[Smilin]

Mac fell further and further behind until they completely abandoned their OS altogether and started from scratch based on decades of other's works (FreeBSD). Were Mac users so busy cleaning up after a complete abandonment of backwards compatibility that they forgot this? Give it a few years and their R&D deficiency will again cause them to fall behind. So no, I don't think it will ever overtake Windows.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: compuwiz1

Originally posted by: Soviet
Never, not a chance, no. I dont wanna betray windows, not after all its done for me!

A Mac owner= a pea brained, fluffy poodle owner, with a paid off older volvo.

ROFL "paid off older volvo"

 

[TBSN]

One thing to take into consideration is how stable Mac machines are. Of course, with the right maintainance a windows machine can be very stable, but OS X has never crashed for me after 3 years of use, you don't need to defrag the HDD's due to the type of file system, and it is still very resistant to viruses.

So for some people who do a lot of professional video-editing and graphic work, a Mac OS (and therefore a Mac machine) just makes more sense because you get a very stable and high-performance computer that requires very little "maintainance."

Then, of course, there are the computer users who care nothing about knowing how a computer works and such, who usually will screw up a computer because they don't know where they store files (i.e. Everywhere) and they never do virus checks... They will probably be able to screw up both machines, but at least the Mac is a little more difficult to crash because of "neglect" so to speak.

Of course, I have nothing against the Microsoft OS's, and in fact I'm planning on building one that I can use for both video-editing and some gaming, which is something that Mac doesn't really offer. It's just that for some people an easier to use, more robust OS is just better for them because they don't feel like having to do all the installation and setup that someone like me is willing to go through in order to build a solid PC.

Am I making sense at all..?

 

[Nothinman]

Were Mac users so busy cleaning up after a complete abandonment of backwards compatibility that they forgot this?

Actually Apple has done an amazing job with backwards compatibility and that's across at least 3 architectures over the years.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I wouldn't call Solaris the best OS on the planet, probably not even close. The hardware support is abysmal compared to Windows and Linux and it still comes with CDE by default. Hell the default shell can't even backspace properly. There is definitely potential, as projects like Nextenta show, but there's a long way to go before Solaris could even think about competing with Linux on the desktop and that's saying something.

I was think in terms of purely the operating system, interface elements and hardware support aside. I am hardly an expert in this matter so I should not press the issue.

Between Solaris and Linux, I would never use Solaris on the desktop either unless required to do so.

 

[kaltek]

Will Mac's overtake PC's? Not going to happen for a long time, probably never.

But even if you are a big mac person would you want it to? OSX doesn't have viruses written for it simply because very few people use it.

I have a Macbook Pro and I love it, but one of the reasons I love it is due to the fact that it is different. Now if everyone owned a Mac were would their slogan be? "Think Different"

I think many mac users use it for it's simplicity, but not everybody likes simplicity. Nor do they want to spend the extra $200-500 Bucks (depending on the model) to get one.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: TBSN
One thing to take into consideration is how stable Mac machines are. Of course, with the right maintainance a windows machine can be very stable, but OS X has never crashed for me after 3 years of use, you don't need to defrag the HDD's due to the type of file system, and it is still very resistant to viruses.

So for some people who do a lot of professional video-editing and graphic work, a Mac OS (and therefore a Mac machine) just makes more sense because you get a very stable and high-performance computer that requires very little "maintainance."

Then, of course, there are the computer users who care nothing about knowing how a computer works and such, who usually will screw up a computer because they don't know where they store files (i.e. Everywhere) and they never do virus checks... They will probably be able to screw up both machines, but at least the Mac is a little more difficult to crash because of "neglect" so to speak.

Of course, I have nothing against the Microsoft OS's, and in fact I'm planning on building one that I can use for both video-editing and some gaming, which is something that Mac doesn't really offer. It's just that for some people an easier to use, more robust OS is just better for them because they don't feel like having to do all the installation and setup that someone like me is willing to go through in order to build a solid PC.

Am I making sense at all..?

OS X does kernel panic... a lot of the drivers suck balls.

The OS X interface and API's are fantastic. I can write software for OS X with a great looking interface and I don't really even know what I'm doing.

 

[TBSN]

Macs are becoming very big though and soon more people may be using them then windows. Many universities have mac-only facilities (computer labs, libraries, etc.) and I'd say that 90% of the students at the college I go to use Mac laptops. Also more and more professional businesses are going towards Mac setups, as expensive as they may be.

 

[Nothinman]

I was think in terms of purely the operating system, interface elements and hardware support aside. I am hardly an expert in this matter so I should not press the issue.

The OSes main job is to arbitrate access to the hardware so if Solaris supports less (and Linux's hardware support is lightyears ahead of Solaris) then how can it be better? The other areas that Solaris used to be better at, like scalability, are also pretty much lost since the Linux 2.6 kernel too. I did a Solaris 10 installation in VMWare recently so I'm probably a little biased against it beceause it was such a terrible experience, but the only thing I can think of that Solaris has that Linux doesn't is ZFS and most of that functionality can be replicated with the stuff Linux does support.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: TBSN
Macs are becoming very big though and soon more people may be using them then windows. Many universities have mac-only facilities (computer labs, libraries, etc.) and I'd say that 90% of the students at the college I go to use Mac laptops. Also more and more professional businesses are going towards Mac setups, as expensive as they may be.

What kind of businesses?

At the schools that I looked at a few years ago (I'm debating on going back to college), there was a serious bias against Macs. They all said that they recommend against purchasing one for school. I assume that this is because there is a lot of Windows only software out there. I find it interesting that your school is the opposite.

As far as I am concerned, until the core applications that I use on a daily basis get ported to MacOS and can run as well as their counterparts, I have absolutely no use for MacOS. I guess I don't see the attraction to it. Are there any programs that a Mac can run that a Windows system can't run (Other than the native Unix applications, of course)?

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: drag
No it's a 2.8 chip that is much more powerfull then the Intel 3.0ghz chips. That's all.
Frequency is fairly irrellevent nowadays, the AMD cpus are much more efficient per clock then the P4/Xeon stuff of those types..

Actually the 5150(Intel, you SUCK, those numbers are the worst marketing yet) is a Woodcrest Xeon, so they are in fact of the brand new AMD-spanking type

Oh and Nothinman, learn to love Solaris zones

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: drag
No it's a 2.8 chip that is much more powerfull then the Intel 3.0ghz chips. That's all.
Frequency is fairly irrellevent nowadays, the AMD cpus are much more efficient per clock then the P4/Xeon stuff of those types..

Actually the 5150(Intel, you SUCK, those numbers are the worst marketing yet) is a Woodcrest Xeon, so they are in fact of the brand new AMD-spanking type

Well my bad then.

Oh and Nothinman, learn to love Solaris zones

Zones, plones. blah.

Linux you have Vserver and OpenVZ. Same difference.

Plus you have UML, KVM, KQEMU (recently gpl'd woot), Xen, and so on and so forth.

Wake me up when Solaris gets something stupid simple, like Linux-HA and DRBD. I _love_ how you can do a kernel module and get a extra 9 tacked onto the end of those aviability numbers. Take that downtime from hours per year to minutes, for free.

(also with newer versions of DRBD they support both nodes being primary so you can do some of that ocfs2/gfs tastiness)

The one thing you can't do in Linux with Solaris is Dtrace functionality. And the magic thing about Dtrace is that you can setup instrumentation on a production machine, which is something you'd never be able to get away with with Kprobes or whatnot.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm a Linux fan and I'm posting from Ubuntu right now. However, you can't beat Windows for hardware and software compatibility (I don't mean out of the box - just overall support).

Even if that's true, and I don't believe that it is, that's only a small part of it. MS was the last to have a hardware accelerated desktop with composition and now that they do have an implementation it's not as useful and has much higher hardware requirements than XGL/AIGLX. WinFS has been trimmed down the point of being a userspace filesystem indexing tool ala Beagle. MS just released full drive encryption with BitLocker but IIRC it requires Vista Ultimate and Linux has had dm-crypt and loop-aes for quite some time now. The "bread crumb" paths in Vista's explorer were pretty much stolen from Nautilus. MS just now moved large chunks of their video and sound systems to userspace for reliability like X and ALSA.

While all of those may be true none of them relate to hardware & software support.