2008-01-05

Computer Yaya

Mac OSX, Linux, Wintel???
Why and why not

4 comments:

stratcat said...

Intel/Windows
At this point, my audio/video computers are Wintels.
Why?
The software I like (Sony SoundForge and Vegas) only runs under Windows.
If my Macs (a plain iMac and a DV iMac) had proper A/V IO, I could use them with Bias Peak and Adobe Premiere.
Audio/Video isn't quite there yet for Linux but I'm keeping up with the developments.
The only Microsoft products on the Wintels are the OS itself.
Internet Explorer? NO!, Firefox? YES!
Outlook (Express)?NO!, GMail/Thunderbird? YES!
MS Office? NO!, Open Office? YES!
Windows Media Player? NO!, Media Player Classic? YES!
The list could go on and on.

stratcat said...

Linux
Once relegated to just being used as heavy-duty servers, Linux is now a fine platform for general purpose workstations. Almost anything one would run under Windows can now be done with Linux. And better!

On the server side of computerdom, Linux is still king. It's a better (faster, more reliable, stable, virus resistant) SMB server than any Windows. As far as internet servers such as Web, dns and email, there is no choice. Ever go to a website and see a page of gibberish with the words MS SQL sprinlked throughout? That's a Windows web server with a crashed MS SQL database. You seldom see such errors with a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server.

With the Real-Time kernel, Linux and a set of programs known as EMC 2 is quickly becoming THE platform for industrial machine control like milling machines and lathes where reliability and safety are paramount. You don't want a 2 ton, high-speed metal cutting machine to suddenly go wild and/or non-responsive!

stratcat said...

Macintosh
Long known for being the machine of choice for art and publishing, the Mac has just gotten better with age.

Now that its OS is Unix based, it is more stable and less crash-prone than ever. And, it's without a doubt the prettiest OS around. With apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, InDesign, Quark Express and Acrobat you can have a complete high-end publishing house/art studio in a laptop and go anywhere in the world and be compatible!

cr33dog said...

Linux for file/print/webdev server (of course).

Linux for Desktop, with XP in a VM for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. - also to check web pages in IE. Can't afford mac these days, and to be honest I really like this current setup.

Sounds strange, but when XP barfs (which is about once a week since I push it hard) I can reboot it and still rock the tunes, check email, etc :) And just in case the nasty BSOD or some other Evil Thing comes along, I'll just wipe the image and install again - no chance of loosing anything important.