Bill Gates started COMDEX the other day by saying, "PCs don't work
as well as they should" and "we will fix that - over the next ten
years." Well, one can only surmise that the PCs he was talking about
are PCs that run Windows.
I have several "PCs" that run almost flawlessly.
The Macintosh
My Macintosh has worked very well for the past twelve years.
Let me say that again for all the PC people out there: I have been
absolutely satisfied with how my Macintosh PC has run for the past
twelve years. In fact, so much so, that I love my Mac. It allows
me to do what I want, not what some megalo-software company
wants me to be able to do.
My Mac crashes about twice a month (if I load and run Microsoft
applications, the frequency rises to approximately twice per week. I
tested this by uninstalling and reinstalling MS Office several times,
and the evidence is conclusive) and that is much less frequently
than my buddies PCs running Windows. They crash once a day, minimum,
whether PowerPointing or Word processing.
What do I do with my Mac so that it crashes so little, you may be
wondering? Am I treating it with kid gloves? You be the judge. I run 3D
modeling and rendering apps on my Mac- sometimes as long as four days
straight processing time, depending on complexity. I also design
websites, make iMovies, play MP3 files (over my stereo - the Mac has
had built-in high-quality sound since the late eighties), write CDs in
Mac or Windows format, and with the Macs ability to read and write
DOS/Windows formatted disks, along with Virtual PC, I can both Run
Windows/DOS programs and read/write Windows disks. I have had up to
four monitors connected to my 1996 vintage PowerTower Mac clone and up to six on a 1990
vintage Mac IIfx - with no
problems whatsoever.
The system also works logically, something foreign to Windows
programmers. (Don't start me on the ease-of-use. It is not as
close as Windows users think.) I have never suffered one day of
downtime due to a virus or worm over the last twelve years. I do not
need to memorize a bunch (hundreds) of file extensions, so that the
operating system knows how to open a file - the Mac has built-in
intelligence which takes care of that. (Not getting forced to upgrade
my OS every time I want a cool new feature is a benefit, too, but I
won't touch that one.)
I can copy files, programs, folders, etc. to any drive I want,
before or after installation, and the Macintosh intelligence takes care
of keeping track of where things are, and warns me before
copying if there is not enough room on the target drive. (On a
Windows system, it will copy the parts that fit to a new drive, and
leave what doesn't where it was. No intelligence.)
After several years of Macintosh (and MS/DR DOS, and then Windows in
various jobs) I wanted to see the real power behind the Internet, so I
began experimenting with various flavors of Unix.
Linux
Around 1997, I bought a copy of RedHat Linux, and a Pentium Pro MMX
server to run it on. The install procedure was terrible, and the first
install took me two weeks to complete. This was no fault of the
software; it was my own ignorance in partition tables and other such
things that the newest installers (slick, GUI-based install utilities
are now the norm for popular Linux distributions) take care of
automatically. My Linux box has taught me many things, including giving
me a chance to compile my own programs. The freedom of installing
software that is "free" after years of expensive "lock down the
features" application programs is truly revolutionary - and you can't
understand it until you do it.
There are also some home-brew programs available for Linux that are
not available elsewhere, or were developed on Linux and are considered
best-of-breed there. One example is nmap. This is a program to tell you
what server is on the other end of your Internet connection, even if
measures have been taken to try to obfuscate the server OS. Sometimes
it just gives a guess; other times it is locked down solid that it is
"server y from company x."
More recently I have been experimenting with open office, gnome, and
shell scripting, as well as network protocols like NFS and DNS.
Linux has been remarkably stable throughout all of this. I have had
maybe 8 system crashes since I began running Linux - and most of those
were my fault for "mucking about as root" when I should not have been.
The breadth and quality of the "free" applications are for the most
part excellent and provide as wide a choice as any OS - more if
you want to run a Windows environment with WINE or win4lin. (I run
VirtualPC on the Macintosh, so I have had little experience with
Windows on Linux.) Feeling the power of Unix, but being somewhat
constrained by "generic" hardware, I made the next logical leap for
myself, which was Unix on Unix hardware.
Sun Solaris
For over two years now, I have been using Solaris on Sparc Hardware.
I started with 2.6 and recently moved to 8 (2.8 in the 2.6
nomenclature) on a SPARCstation from 1993. It runs at 40 MHz, and it is
plenty fast enough to run the newest and best Solaris OS, and browse
the Web as an experimental station. (I would recommend a $999 Sun Blade
100 to anyone looking to enter this market today.) I cannot stress
enough the quality feel of Sun hardware - components are top notch, and
there are many benefits that come about as a result of this. For
instance, the ethernet port is not an add-on (and there is
support built-in to the OS for exactly that interface, not a
generic type of driver experience). [As an aside here, I must say that
I experienced something that no other OS has shown me - the Sparc runs
generally faster with the later Solaris 8, than it did with 2.6.
Yes, the larger, more recent offering is better on the old hardware I
have. Try that with any other OS.]
In two years of trying, I have yet to completely crash the Solaris
OS. I have opened up lots of applications, Web browser windows,
terminals, accessed the system remotely, etc., mucked around as root -
no problems here (maybe I was just lucky) - the Solaris OS on Sparc
hardware seems to be as bulletproof as Lexan. Most applications are
expensive, but excellent, and there are more and more ports from Linux,
bringing free software to the platform "the Internet runs on" so you
can choose expensive software with great 800# support or "free" with
help-mail support from the community.
In short, Solaris has grown on me. It is the most stable OS I run
(or have run) personally, and there are plenty of applications
available, no matter what version you run. Another point worth
mentioning is the scalability: A program running on my sparc10 is
exactly the same program that would run on an E450 server
($20,000+). Thus, if I started a Web-based endeavor which gained steam
quickly, I could buy new hardware, but keep all my software, and just
move it to the proper places on the new system. (In practice, this is
somewhat harder to do than it sounds, but any competent Solaris
administrator should be able to cope successfully.) Clustering is
pretty well advanced on Solaris, but expensive (Trend? Best of breed
usually is).
Is it worth it? If you need mission-critical clustering with
topnotch support, yes. If you can do it yourself, then Linux (again,
using community support) would be the way to go, as their clustering is
strong, if not up to the industrial strength of Solaris. (This is up
for debate; proponents of either could make strong arguments in
different areas.) [Note: My clustering experience is limited. Your
mileage may vary.]
Recently, Sun released StarOffice 6.0, which my Sparc,
unfortunately, does not have enough RAM to run (I could upgrade, but my
next move will be to a faster Sun box, so I am waiting on that).
Why is this important? Formatting. Most formatting (including
footnotes and bibliography) is retained with the StarOffice 6.0
program, and the files created are absolutely MS Office compatible.
StarOffice is also free and can be run over the network. If you have a
large Sun server, your employees can run StarOffice over the network
instead of locally, which is much more reliable (and much
cheaper than equipping a desktop user with a PC for $1,000 and MS
Office for $450 each).
Conclusion
To summarize, if you need a computer built for consumers, one that
things just work on, get yourself a Macintosh. If you want to be
working on fixing your computer (or paying to have it fixed),
get a PC running Windows. (Remember, even Bill Gates says they don't
work.)
If your needs run to experimentation on a stable Unix system
that is cheap, just buy a Linux distribution (RedHat, SuSe, Mandrake;
Connectiva if you are Spanish speaking, etc.) for $3.95 from
"cheapbytes.com" and resurrect that old Pentium II 266 that won't work
at all with Windows anymore - it is fine for Linux (64 MB RAM, please).
On the other hand, if you are looking to understand the platform the
Internet runs on and the hardware that runs that OS, get a Solaris on
Sparc machine.
Contrary to Bill Gates's comments, all of these non-Windows
computers run very acceptably. One can only assume that when
Bill said PCs don't work well, he was talking about PCs with
Windows.
I have had excellent PCs for over ten years. I just don't see the
problem with PCs - only with Windows operating systems.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
