October 05, 2003 | View Comments (14) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: I would just like to hear what other designers use as their OS. A good discussion should follow.
Today has been one of those days where I long to have a Mac G5 sitting on my desk. I just love to look at those things and the thought of having a beautiful GUI sitting on top of a Unix-based OS is so appealing to me. With this in mind I decided I would ask you guys what is your operating system of choice and why. None of my friends are designers so I really do not get to have these conversations too often.
Right now my current OS of choice is RedHat 9. I love the power and freedom that Linux offers me and couple this with the Gnome Desktop and I am generally a happy camper until I get one of my G5 urges. Besides being a designer I am also a computer geek (who isn't right?). I love to tinker with my system and Linux allows me to do so. With apt-get I can update/install almost any software that I want. There are so many great features that I can not bore you since I am sure you know of them, but there is one thing that I must speak of and that is the fonts. Man, they are so sweet. I really should not do my design on this OS just because the fonts of my pages look nice and then I see them on a Windows OS (usually 2000) and the page looks completely different. The headers on this site set in Arial look really nice anti-aliased and reading anything one the web is a pleasure.
The only time I have to go to my other computer for Windows (I refuse to dual-boot) is for graphic stuff that I can not do as easily with GIMP. I try to do everything I can in GIMP, but I still have a lot to learn. Besides that I really have no other need to use Windows. Now that OpenOffice 1.1 has native export to PDF built-in (great for proposals) Office is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
So what do you use and why? Also do you long to switch to something else? I would like to hear about it.
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I'm using a PowerBook G3 400MHz with MacOS X. While OS 9 was impressively intuitive, the stability and BSD underpinnings of MacOS X make it much better (despite the interface backward steps eg metallic apps). I never got into the PC world because Windows just looks ugly to me. I heard WinXP has anti-aliasing, but that it's not on by default. I think Mac software tends to be a little easier to use (and a little more polished), but that could be personal bias.
MacOS X has also been great for letting me learn about Unix/LAMP stuff. I think it probably has an edge in ease-of-use over the Linux world, in that most everything has a GUI option. Not as much stuff is precompiled, but using Fink I can install most anything I need from the unix world. It might be more of a pain for things you have to build yourself, but I don't know about that ;-) I also heard that some things are a little behind eg Perl only 5.6, although hopefully 10.3 will ship with up-to-date unix stuff.
I'm buying a G5 1.6GHz in the next month. Laptops are nice and all, but a little uncomfortable to use as a main machine. I think that if you had the money to get a G5, you certainly wouldn't be disappointed, plus you'd still have access to all the Unix stuff you need (X11, Darwin etc if you prefer Gnome over lickable). Apple have certainly come a long way since Steve came back.
At the end of the day, it's what feels easy and what works for you. Plus what platform your geeky friends use, so you have someone to ask when things go bad ;-) Not a big deal for anyone who has used Linux, but important advice for beginners. If you decided to change I bet the first two weeks would be annoying, but once you got set up it'd be easy for you.
peace - oli
oli (http://oli.boblet.net/)
Right now I am 100% Windows XP Pro. I have always been a Windows user (about 10 years). I have nothing against Macs, I just feel more comfortable with Windows. I will say that I have the current FreeBSD and RedHat disc images waiting to be burned so I can try these out. I just don't have any free space on my computer right now.
I will say that I would like to work with a Mac. In fact, if I had the money I would like to get a Powerbook. I've always wanted a laptop, so this would kill two birds.
But that is the main reason I don't have a Mac -- money. I just can't get past how expensive the hardware is. I can build Windows machines for much less compared to Macs. That may also be another factor. I love building my computers and upgrading them with better/faster parts down the road. Maybe I am out of the loop when it comes to Mac hardware, but I don't hear about people buying a new motherboard/cpu for their Mac when a newer model comes out. It seems like you have to buy a whole new machine.
For example, right now I am running a Tyan motherboard, dual Pentium 3 1GHz cpu's, and 512MB of ram. When I decide to upgrade all I have to do is go and buy a new motherboard/cpu/ram and that's it. Then I can reuse my old parts and put the old motherboard/cpu/ram into a reasonable 2nd system.
Is this possible with Macs?
Richard
I, too, am a Windows XP guy. I've been using Windows since I started college (fall of 97, I was required to purchase a Win95 laptop to use for all of my classes), and since then I haven't looked back (I was a hard core Mac user before that). Since then, I've grown so accustomed to Windows, that to use anything else just doesn't make sense. It would take me too long to get acquanted with the keyboard shortcuts and such of another OS that it just doesn't seem worthwhile. I have tried Linux before, but it just doesn't do anything for me.
I would say that the most limiting aspect of using Windows is that it really isn't anything like what my webhost is running (RedHat something or other). While that is a minor setback, I have shell access available, so whenever I want to try something without the horrible edit/ftp/test cycle, I can just login to my account directly, and play around.
milbertus (http://www.milbertus.com)
Richard, being a Windows guy maybe you have no need for the Unix underpinnings that OSX can offer. However, I have been using Linux since 98' and it is very hard to go back to Windows. Especially since Gnome and KDE and improving so rapidly. My point is initially you might buy a Mac for the hardware, but I think everyone stays for the experience of the OS. I wouldn't really know though since I don't have one :(
Dez: Would you say the 1.8 is worth getting over the 1.6?
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
I spent many, many years on a Mac, starting with System 6.0.8. I love Macs, they're fantastic machines, but when I needed to buy a computer 3 years ago, I got a Windows machine because most other things in my life required me to use a PC, and OSX wasn't out yet.
Right now, I've got a single Pentium 4 2.8GHz with 1GB of PC2700 RAM and an NVidia GeForce FX 5600 with 256MB VRAM, running Windows XP Professional SP1. It's a great machine, and XP is by far the best Windows OS (yes, better than 2000 Pro). I'd like to get a laptop though. Definitely a PowerBook with OSX 10.3 (when it comes out). I miss having a Mac. They're so intuitive, beautiful and easy-to-use that I sometimes have dreams about having one again.
I also dual-boot with Red Hat Linux 8.0. Gnome is fantastic, but the system just isn't familiar to me yet. Coming from a non-Unix background there are still many aspects of Linux that aren't very intuitive or user-friendly, but it's getting better.
I'm also a fan of BeOS 5 (what?). Palm bought-out Be, Inc. in 2000 or 2001, so the OS is dead, but it's a brilliant little OS. There are a couple of Open Source projects working to re-create a working replica of BeOS so that BeOS development can continue.
So basically, I use Windows XP as my primary OS, but I also use Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux 8.0, and BeOS 5.
Ryan Parman (http://www.skyzyx.com)
Man oh man, BeOS had the potential to be a great system. Just did not have the audience it needed to survive however. I forgot to mention that another great thing about using Linux as my main OS is that it also doubles as my webserver/development server.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
This conversation might be a bit over my head, but here goes...
My OS of choice is Mac OS X - right now I'm playing around with Panther - but at work I've got Windows 2000 prof as well.
Not being a OS geek and being way closer to what I'd call an "average" user than a power user, I find OS X easier to deal with. Talk about plug-and-play, I stick my Microsoft mouse in there and sure enough it works, no driver download, no config -- it just works. And it never crashes.
I made the full switch last year and so far I'm really happy. I've had access to macs my whole career so it wasn't too hard, and OS X seems like it'd be an easy adjustment for a Windows user.
Then again, I don't have too many problems with my Windows machine either. As far as the OS goes at least. My Powerbook has many other advantages, outside of the OS, over a Windows based machine in my book. It's smaller, faster, and well, cooler.
I hear quite often about the power that the Unix underpinnings you talk about has to offer, but I just have a hard time getting my mind around that kind of thing.
Keith (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/)
Ahhh... The G5. What a beautiful piece of engineering! Yes, I must admit that I too have fallen to it's beauty, design, and power.
Currently I am a reluctant windows user. Though I despise Microsoft I have been bound to these products and for far too long. In the past my schooling was on windows machines. So the natural progression was to work with it in my job since I was familiar with it. Today, the only thing holding me back is the cost. I can't afford to buy both the hardware AND all of the software that I need to do my work.
I very much want to work in the elegant environment of OSX. I've even considered going to the 17" iMac just to get off of windows. I've had too many problems with windows to make it an even remotely enjoyable experience. I envy those of you who are using the G5s or even an Apple. Lucky you.
Josh
Hmm. Well, I use Win2K. So far as I'm concerned, it's a totally adequate OS. It's not pretty like OSX, but it's rock solid if you're not an idiot, every piece of software I want is available for it, and it's not bloated like XP (I tried XP and even with all the gui crap turned off, my PC was significantly slower. I went back to 2k).
I also have an ibook running OSX Jaguar. I use it for 3 things -- surfing the web and doing email at home (totally wireless, lightweight, good battery life, beautiful thing), testing websites on a mac (business writeoff, check), and showing off to clients. It's a beautiful machine, OSX is a beautiful environment, and as you noted, Paul, websites just look damned good on it. Safari is good, especially when you demetalize it, but Omniweb is just the best. It doesn't handle some HTML and CSS as well as safari, though that may have changed now that it's using webcore and so on, but it has the most gorgeous rendering possible, and websites just look damned good in it. And that = $$$
I do emergency dev work on it sometimes, but it just isn't as usable as windows for me. In part that's because it's a laptop, but the OS itself is really the problem. I like working with things maximized. You can't bloody do that in OSX. You hit "maximize" and it makes it taller. Not maximized. Just a little taller. I don't remember OS9 being like that, but I never played with it much.
And only being able to grasp that one little corner of the window to resize is a real pain in the ass. If I want to drag it to full screen, first I have to move it to the upper left corner, then drag the corner til it covers the full screen... oops, but then there's the dock, jumping up like an eager puppy dog to knock me down and lick my face and get in my way. Of course,I could turn off the animation, but the nifty little animated dock icons getting bigger in a wave is what sold me on it in the first place....
Now, for server, I use LAMP for all my personal business stuff (I have a virtual dedicated server from OLM/WebAXXS, using the Ensim control panel), but at the office it's all WinNT and Win2K server stuff, with all the patches constantly updated and so on. We've had zero unscheduled downtime since we installed them in 2000, and since we use load balancing and failover, zero downtime from a customer's perspective (not counting any network or internet problems... can't control those). We're looking at linux-on-mainframe but there are too many political and communications issues... (especially on specs... it's not like saying "I need dual 1.8 GHZ Xeons" ... they need to know how many MIPS, and there's no direct correlation between MIPS on a PC server and MIPS on a big IBM mainframe)
JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
oh, and just to give myself a little geek cred, in the first couple of weeks I had my ibook, I compiled apache, mysql, php, and webDAV from source. Did Tomcat a few months later.
And I didn't mention the other reason I don't use the laptop for much serious work... it's too slow. it was one of the first 'new' ibooks... g3 500mhz, and I think I have 192 megs of RAM, maybe 320
JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
On G5 1.6 vs 1.8, I think it is really a matter of your bank balance. I just went for the fastest, most powerful beast I could afford to accomodate my current and future needs: 1.8 comes with double the RAM and storage; I want to do my own filming and video editing at somepoint; and it's going to be a looong time before I upgrade again. But at least down my way (Melbourne, Aus), the difference is AUS$1000, so it really does come down to your needs and money.
dez
I would love to have a Mac G5. The beauty and silence of that system is impressive and I have always loved Macs. If it weren't for my desire to have a 21" Cinematic display to go along with it, I might have one by now. Someday.
Currently, I'm both a Linux and XP user. Linux definitely has it's place in the OS world for some things, but for the most part, even with releases like RedHat Shrike and Mandrake 9.1, it still can't beat Windows for native support of the various pieces of hardware that I have. Given that I'm also a gamer and certainly won't be able to play Half-Life 2 on Linux, XP is my choice OS for the desktop.
But for my RedHat 8 machine that can be a firewall, router, DHCP server, and web server without so much as breaking a sweat, there's no comparison. It satisfies that part of me that loves Linux.
Jason (http://izzywizzy.org)
There is some potential of Half-Life 2 being on Linux...at least that is what some folks are saying about the leaked source code. G5's should handle games pretty well as long as people start developing for them. That seems to be one of the only real reasons to keep Windows around for me...games. Oh well. Thanks for all the responses guys. Time for a new entry.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
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#1
I ditched my crappy Mac 7300/200 for a G5 1.8GHz about a month ago. I use Macs because I have been using them for nearly fifteen years and I like them. The G5 was a logical step because I needed more guts, power and storage.
So yes, I longed to switch to the most powerful Mac my money could buy and I did.
I love the Mac OS X system, don't agree with the Classic lovers who miss some old features and hate the Dock and though I am not a geek, I am looking foward to learning the Unix underpinnings of the system (PHP and MySql too while I'm at it).
dez