Vinny;
If Intel sucks so much, and since Apple has abandoned their proprietary stance in favor of basing their machines on Intel cores, does that mean I can expect you to start using AMD-based Linux boxen?
Anyway, an updated repost of one of my earlier op-eds:
Having used and supported both, I have certain issues with each - both in use and in maintenance (and anyone who says "it needs no maintenance" about *anything* is either lying or incompetent). I respect both PCs and Macs, though each has its own niche, and attempting to hammer a square peg into a round hole is far more problematic than just using a round peg.
In terms of use, my experience is that Macs are not as well suited to tasks outside their specialty of multimedia work (software development, gaming, server ops, etc) as PCs. PCs, on the other hand, aren't nearly as good as a Mac when it comes to multimedia development. If I'm coding, I want a PC. If I'm doing A/V work, I want a Mac. If I'm gaming, I kind of *need* a PC (not Mac's fault - mainly that I've seen a lot of software houses shy away from Mac porting to take advantage of the wider PC deployment, though this is changing with the Mactel alliance). Linux is trying damned hard, but I can't really take a Linux gaming rig seriously until I see a bleeding-edge Windows game running on it as well as it runs on a Windows machine (in terms of graphical performance, that is). For *any* other app, I have no problem whatsoever taking Linux seriously, and generally prefer it. All three platforms are about equal when it comes to office apps - OpenOffice (the only office package I know of that runs on all three platforms natively) performs pretty much the same on all three OS-families assuming the hardware is comparable, though Macs take the lead here because the maintenance isn't as problematic as Windows, and the initial set-up is simpler than Linux (though distros like Ubuntu are changing this).
In terms of maintenance in software, Mac has the lead in part because there are infinitely fewer malware issues with a Mac. Basically, Windows sucks, it's not secure in any real way, and the integration of Internet Explorer and hard-wired code execution where it bloody well shouldn't be (like VBScript execution in e-mail for f#$@'s sake..) makes it *far* simpler to write a Windows virus than any other platform. A Mac is also a highly tweaked out machine - this has its ups and downs. The 'up' in this case is that MacOS is designed specifically for hardware made by only one company, whereas Windows and Linux have to account for being put on all different manners of hardware made by hundreds of different companies. Obviously, it's going to be more stable.
On a tangent, I think the elitists of the Mac world would have a very rude awakening indeed if their favored environment had to contend with the kind of diversity that exists outside that particular ivory tower. Windows does it, but does it in an amazingly shoddy manner. Linux does it and does it well, but only after 15-mumble years of worldwide community-driven development work - no way in hell any single corporation could pull that off while meeting a marketing timetable.
In terms of hardware work, PCs are king. If I want to refit a PC, I can buy anything I want from anybody I want, open the case with a screwdriver, plug stuff in, and it just works once the drivers are installed. In the most extreme case, I might have to spend a few extra minutes making sure I have a big enough power supply and my motherboard isn't too insanely outdated. Macs, on the other hand, are a closed hardware system (or were, until Intel got into the Mac game - more on this once I actually work on a Mactel machine; I make it a point to only comment on technology I've actually had my hands on). ONLY Apple makes the hardware, which means your incremental upgrade path with a Mac is severely stunted, as opposed to the open standard of PC x86 architecture. If Apple doesn't want you to have an upgrade path - which they don't, as they can make more money by requiring you to buy an entirely new machine every few years - you're not going to have one. And common varieties of Macs are not user-servicable, requiring breaking the chassis (iMacs) or using a special case-cracking tool (a lot of the PowerPC variants I've seen) to even open the box. As a hardware guy, I hate that - I can't stand it when a company goes to such lengths to keep me away from the hardware that I friggin' own. I buy a Dell machine, I unscrew one screw, push a tab, and I'm in - 10 seconds flat. With a Mac, I have to hope that either it's a screw-in non-sealed machine, or that I happen to have a slim-jim (the tool, not the snack) to crack it open.
Though, it should be noted that the G-series Apple towers have made *huge* improvements on this count. They're as easy to open as your average Dell or other PC OEM tower. The internal layout is fairly well executed (I dislike the design of the optical bays and the positioning of the hard drives on the floor of the chassis, but those are minor points) and parts are laid out in a logical and unambiguous manner. Major props for mounting the motherboard to the drop-down side panel - makes work a hell of a lot easier.
However, herein lies the problem with the tweaked-out aspect of Macs. A Mac system core (CPU and motherboard) will only work properly with a very limited number of components. Apple engineers Macs to be highly integrated - *this* CPU goes with *that* motherboard. This is how a 400MHz G4 can run rings around a midrange first-gen PIII - the G4 is basically optimized to damn-near the molecular level. So heaven help you if you try a swap or an upgrade. Also, the degree of tenseness in the components caused by this level of (what I see as) over-optimization makes the components quite fragile - the componentry is tightly executed, but so tightly that it's just short of rupture. It's a very efficient and elegant structure, but in the same way that glass has an efficient and elegant structure - very pretty, but very fragile. Mac engineering sacrifices robustness and durability by over-emphasizing elegance in design.
I've been working with computers for over 20 years, mainly PCs. I've torn 'em down, stored parts in piles, metal drawers, cardboard boxes, plastic bins... really abused 'em, and I've never had a board crap out on me (the one board I ever blew was the result of me doing something amazingly stupid while I was learning). I recently, on a whim, picked up a G4 tower. Booted it up, worked fine, opened it, pulled the hard drive out (standard IDE, thank ghod), ran it through a DoD wipe (I bought it from work - we're required to do wipes on pretty much everything), popped the drive back in, closed the chassis, pressed the power button... and nothing. Tried for days to fix it, couldn't. Vinny couldn't fix it. Diagnosis - static electricity damage to the motherboard. I never even touched the bloody thing - only the metal chassis bits around the hard drive. I never felt a static discharge (I've shocked, and gotten zotted by, PCs and never blew one out). I'm informed that this sort of "you're f'ed, buy a new machine" damage is quite common to Apples that have... well... had their cases opened.
The crew at Central generously gave me a known-working G4 of similar capacity in exchange for my DOA unit. The paranoia that's resulted from the first one's failure aside, there are still issues. I have a crap-ton of video cards of various capacities and interfaces - my plan was to use this unit as either a PVR or a media toaster, just needed to replace the video card with one that had an S-Video port. My G4 will only work with the video card it came with - it completely ignores any other AGP card, and all PCI video cards. And I've done all the Apple-recommended tricks - battery swapping, PRAM reset, and so on. It only talks to the specific card it came with. Apple hardware is the only tech I've ever seen behave this way. When a machine has an AGP slot that doesn't work with known-good AGP cards and PCI slots that don't work with known-good PCI video cards, that leads me to serious questions about the design and robustness of the thing. If, on the other hand, I'm wrong and I'm missing something and there are Apple-specific PCI and AGP units, then I have a major gripe - if it's not compatible with the existing spec, DON'T USE THE SAME CONNECTORS! For an idea on why using a connector for something that's not the spec the entire world expects for that connector, imagine what it would be like if telephone wires used the same type of plug as electrical outlets.
Despite Apple's major improvements over their former "you're not allowed inside" chassis design, I still consider them non-upgradeable, ridiculously fragile "black-box" machines that are totally inappropriate for anyone who wants to be able to work under the hood.
But I'm mainly talking architectures here. In hardware, Macs are superior for media processing, are more user-friendly, and are a lot less failure-prone, if you don't mind having a "black-box" computer. PCs are superior for ease of maintenance and upgrade (example; I would vastly prefer to buy $100-$200 in upgrade parts per year rather than drop $2000 every three years on an entirely new machine) and allow you infinitely more freedom in selecting what you want to run on what equipment, so long as you don't mind your machine being "jack of all trades, master of none". It just depends on where your priorities are.
But now we get into software - the operating system.
OK. Windows is crap, but it's highly available crap. Most software apps - commerical *and* freeware, as Windows machines currently represent the most profitable market - are built for Windows, meaning your Windows toolkit will be larger by default. You can do more with Windows in more different ways (and what you do will be more easily distributable because most other people use Windows), but you can't do it as well.
Mac - again - is a multimedia-oriented system. I haven't played with OSX yet (I know it's based on BSD UNIX, which earns a TON of respect in my view, but I don't yet know it personally). My main problem with MacOS is that the versions I know keep you away from the "bare metal" of the system. In Linux, getting to the metal is designed to be simple. Even in Windows, I can get an unrestricted command-prompt and do things that aren't supported (or properly supported) by the GUI. And, sometimes, I can do things way the hell faster from a CLI than I can by clicking through interminable menus. In MacOS 9, no such animal - you're constrained to the interface that Apple provides for you, you can only go outside that if you're a master Apple wizard (like Vinny), and you're pretty much SOL if you want to do something that Apple's engineers didn't specifically account for.
Linux, the "third child" of the OS world, is my preference. It does many things equally well, is completely non-specialized, not tied to any one architecture or vendor or manufacturer, and can be learned and exchanged openly (since the software is open-source, anybody can do pretty much whatever they want with it). The GUI is what a GUI should be - an interface layer. It's not tied to the kernel, it's not essential to using the machine, it won't take down the box if it crashes; it's an *interface*. It passes scripts and commands to the environment instead of having delusions of *being* the environment (I'm looking right at you, Windows... and don't you give me that innocent look either, MacOS). I like Linux for its stability (the US gov't rates it as the most stable and secure publicly-available OS out there, and I've found that to be true in live-use) and it's "hey, I'm an infinitely big toolbox - I can do whatever you want, just plug it in!" modular nature (particularly in the case of Ubuntu Linux - hands down the best OS I've ever seen; my G4 runs it
). Linux can do anything Windows or MacOS can, and often do it better - the only question is how easy is it to set up initially. This varies depending on the distribution and the application - for a well-documented, community-supported distro like Slackware, Debian, or (particularly) Ubuntu, the answer is "usually, pretty easy".
So, in summary of my opinions:
Macs - for people who don't care about the hardware so long as it works; "user-proof" home and office apps, multimedia work.
PCs - for people who like working with the hardware (and don't want to constantly buy entire machines); gaming, server apps, development.
MacOS - same as above.
Windows - gaming (until MacOS and/or Linux mature as gaming platforms).
Linux - server apps, development.
Apple - is going in the right direction, finally. They've relaxed their proprietary nature (which has nearly put them out of business a few times) and are allowing innovations that have occurred outside their ivory tower to start influencing design and implementation. The BSD-based MacOS and Intel-based Mac, from everything I've read so far, have proven brilliant in terms of performance and greatly improved versatility. I'm reserving judgment until I actually can play with one. Their older products - hardware and software - are annoyingly fragile and black-box-ish. The black-box part of the software is understandable if not exactly appreciated, but the fragility of the hardware is nigh impossible to ignore; it's far easier and cheaper to reformat a crashed Windows PC than it is to repair a Mac with a static-ed motherboard (which, from my reading, are the respective most-likely critical failure conditions of those platforms).
Microsoft - can go to hell. Considering Linux's versatility and free availability and Mac's user-friendliness and increasing acceptance of industry standards, the only real justifiable use for Windows is games. This use will dry up once MacOS fully breaks in its new Intel-made shoes and Linux matures more towards an everyday environment.
Linux - is not yet an all-purpose OS, but it's getting there. Red Hat and their partnership with IBM back in the 90s launched Linux into legitimacy, and it has proven to be the ultimate successor to UNIX. Projects like Slackware and Debian have sufficiently developed the core technology, allowing for a shift towards making implementation easier to the end-user. Ubuntu has made impressive strides in this vein. However, a more concentrated effort on developing Linux's gaming capabilities and continuing Ubuntu's premise of a "friendlier, easier, but just as powerful" Linux is required.
In my ideal world, everyday home-users use Macs, offices use a mix of Macs and PCs running Linux as determined by the jobs of the users (techs have PCs running Linux, the marketing people have Macs, etc), the servers are all PCs running Linux, and gurus use whatever they prefer.
