I've been a Mac user since 1997. Prior to that, I was a die-hard
Apple IIGS fan going back to 1987. I've been
well versed with the Mac OS for over 14 years. That said, I was very
excited when I first read about the impending arrival of OS X. I
knew I would make the switch, but I wanted to wait a few months after
the initial release before upgrading.
While I like the classic OS, I find it to be unstable over a period
of time. Frequent reboots were commonplace. I made sure to read
articles and message boards on the subject, to know what to expect when
performing the upgrade. In the end, the decision to upgrade was
inevitable.
First, I decided to repartition my Dual
G4/450 with 15 GB dedicated to OS X, and 15 GB devoted to
Classic. Installation of 10.0 -> 10.0.4 was flawless. Even the
subsequent 10.1 installation went without a hitch.
However, the same could not be said for my PowerBook G3 (Pismo). Installation of 10.0 was a
nightmare, 
with kernel panics galore -
sometimes early in the install, other times, as installation was on the
verge of completing. After two days (and two sleepless nights!) of
debugging, I narrowed the problem down to a faulty 512 MB DIMM I had
purchased from OWC. A quick phone call to them, and I was able to get a
replacement module. After its arrival, installation was a breeze!
I use Mac OS X 10.1 on a daily basis, both at home and at work.
I found it to be relatively easy for me to adapt to, given my
experience with Macs and (more recently) Unix. The stability factor and
Unix under the hood were two features that sold me on getting this
OS.
I am still patiently awaiting a few key apps to be ported over to
OS X, namely Photoshop and GoLive, but I can live with running
these in Classic for the time being. Perhaps the only reason I still
revert to booting up my Mac into Classic is for AOL Instant Messenger.
The "classic" version of this app supports Internet "Talk" mode, which
allows me to voice-talk to friends over the Internet. I'm hoping for a
Mac OS X version of Instant Messenger with the same feature.
At work I use my PowerBook G3 for hardware engineering. It's great
being able to bring up terminal sessions, run vi, and run batch scripts
within the operating system. I haven't been bold enough to experiment
with utilities that allow me to bring up Unix GUI-driven tools yet, but
it's nice to know that with a few free add-ons, that it is
possible.
The most interesting thing I've noticed is how people's attitudes
have changed towards the Mac with OS X. My coworkers were very
impressed, and one of them might even consider switching to the Mac,
given his current problems with his Compaq at home.
All in all, I'm very pleased and wish to congratulate Apple on a job
well done!
Krishna M. Sadasivam is the
creator of The PC Weenies
cartoon - "Two 'toons a week, or the next one is FREE!"
