OSX or XPHOME

V-P

I just went to the Apple store and had a chance to try OS X for the first time in person. I was really impressed at the appearance and the speed, but I haven't used Apple's OSs since middle school when they made us use Macs. I was just wondering, with my new drive coming in soon, should I go with OSX or Windows XP. I have XP down pat, and I would have to learn OS X, so... I may also choose to install both and choose which to boot with GRUB or something. Let me know what your experiences are, and which one would be better, and if both, which bootloader you would suggest, and how to install it.

Thrax

What do you do on your PC? That's what it comes down to. It's not that OSX is faster than XP (It isn't), it's that it has access to programs that are OSX-only, and some of them are compelling if you're in the field they're built for.

V-P

I do a bit of everything. I definitely have to be able to play games such as FEAR and HL2, and I also need to be able to use Adobe Suite programs like Photoshop and such, and Dreamweaver, Flash etc. I do not do any video editing, or sound editing. Other than that, basically I need to be able to surf the net and use Microsoft or it's Apple equivalent.

Thrax

Sounds like you're up for XP Home. It's faster at the things you're looking to do.

RWB

Doesn't OSX require a MAC to run?

V-P

RWB wrote:

Doesn't OSX require a MAC to run?

What's the actual difference between a PC and a Mac?

mirage

V|P wrote:

What's the actual difference between a PC and a Mac?

PC and Mac were totally different platforms in the past, I think you already know this. After Apple's transition to Intel platform, the main difference is now BIOS. Actually Apple computers do not have BIOS but they use a technology developed by Intel which is called EFI which was originally designed for Itanium platform. Windows needs the traditional BIOS to boot. OSX needs EFI to boot.

This could be a good read

V-P

mirage wrote:

PC and Mac were totally different platforms in the past, I think you already know this. After Apple's transition to Intel platform, the main difference is now BIOS. Actually Apple computers do not have BIOS but they use a technology developed by Intel which is called EFI which was originally designed for Itanium platform. Windows needs the traditional BIOS to boot. OSX needs EFI to boot.

This could be a good read

That was a good read even though I understood less than half of it. Anyway, so this EFI is better I guess. So then that means the BIOS is what's incompatible with Macs, but I didn't think the OS depended on the BIOS/EFI that much. Also, is it possible to format a drive with each partition being a differenct format (one partition being FAT32, and the other being NTFS). In this case, it wouldn't really provide any advantages, but I was just wondering since it doesn't seem likely to be possible.

drasnor

V|P wrote:

Also, is it possible to format a drive with each partition being a differenct format (one partition being FAT32, and the other being NTFS). In this case, it wouldn't really provide any advantages, but I was just wondering since it doesn't seem likely to be possible.

Yes. Remember though, FAT32 partitions can't exceed 127GB.

-drasnor

V-P

drasnor wrote:

Yes. Remember though, FAT32 partitions can't exceed 127GB.

-drasnor

In that case, what would the advantages be? Is there any speed difference? Reliability difference?

lezlow

have you tried xp pro by retestrak its fast eco and safe to restore you can get it fron snipers redemption NL site

drasnor

FAT32 is obsolete but if you need cross-platform compatibility it's your only real choice. Also, I made a mistake regarding the maximum size for FAT32 partitions. Wikipedia states:

Windows 2000 and Windows XP can read and write to FAT32 filesystems of any size, but the format program on these platforms can only create FAT32 filesystems up to 32 GB.

Note though that the largest individual file size supported by FAT32 is 4GB. Also, I've had problems with FAT32 partitions larger than 127GB not being read properly on all my machines.

NTFS is superior to FAT in every way except compatibility which is only important if you don't use Windows. NTFS supports features that pretty much everyone wants like file permissions, volume mount points, directory junctions, and volume shadow copy. In my experience NTFS is susceptible to journal corruption anytime the computer is power cycled during a write operation (ie brownouts). Also, Microsoft's filesystem repair tools suck.

-drasnor

Kzelk4

Hi, i was kind of in the same situation as you as I was entering university and was unaware of what computer to get. I decided on the imac 20" base config and could not be happier with my purchase. Mac OSX is incredibly easy to learn, and I don't think I will ever purchase a windows computer again. I installed windows xp using bootcamp and installed half life 2. it runs flawlessly. I had also installed the free F.E.A.R. multiplayer client and it runs amazing as well. The only thing I use windows for is when I play Half life 2, and all i have to do is reboot when I want to. Even though Mac OSX and Windows Xp are quite different there are some similarities as well. You can enable the right click button in the system settings for mac. Installing and uninstalling programs is a little different, but quite easy to learn. It really depends on what you use the computer for, if you play Half Life 2 like 5 hours a day, then maybe you will want a XP machine. But for me, I only play it maybe an hour a day and don't think I'm ever going to buy a windows machine again. Mac OS X has me hooked.

Pterocarpous

RWB wrote:

Doesn't OSX require a MAC to run?

Same here. I thought a MAC OS had to run on a MAC machine.... No?? :confused2

drasnor

Pterocarpous wrote:

Same here. I thought a MAC OS had to run on a MAC machine.... No?? :confused2

MacOS only runs on Apple Macintosh hardware without modification. However, new Apple Macintoshes will run Windows natively without modification. Apple even provides a utility that lets you install both OSes and choose between them at startup.

Google can help you find information on how to run OS X on non-Apple hardware be aware that it's possible to run into trouble with the DMCA performing said modifications.

The EFI, OpenFirmware, or the PC BIOS all do pretty much the same things, in different ways, that are absolutely essential and must be performed before the OS is loaded. This little piece of software initializes all your expansion cards and either assigns them resources or notes their memory locations for the OS to allocate resources (Plug and Play), initializes the option ROMs on all of your boot-time peripherals (video, disk, network), probes for your hard drives and other storage devices, initializes your memory and checks for any glaring errors, keeps the system date and time, and executes the content of the boot sector on the selected boot device. If anything goes wrong somewhere in the processes above it generates diagnostic information that can help you fix the problem. This is a grossly simplified explanation but hopefully it will help you appreciate your BIOS a little more.

-drasnor

Pterocarpous

drasnor wrote:

MacOS only runs on Apple Macintosh hardware without modification. However, new Apple Macintoshes will run Windows natively without modification. Apple even provides a utility that lets you install both OSes and choose between them at startup.

-drasnor

Smart move on Apple's part. A boot manager, too! Very nice.

lightnin

i run parallels on my mini.

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/