"Your computer contains various signs of viruses and malware programs presence..."

[Cheshire_Human]

@Zeriel

Just goes to show. Every OS sucks.

Why, yes. That’s what I thought I was saying… Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough.

LinOSXdows Sucks!!!

Clear enough, now?

[Napier]

@Cheshire_Human

…so do all versions of Winblows, except for NT 3.x …

Now, hold on there. NT had a bug in GetBitmap() that would lock the whole machine. I worked with a particularly dedicated developer whose text editor kept crashing my machine. How can an OS with that kind of bug be one of the only one that works?

[beowulff]

@Cheshire_Human

No, the OLD (9.x and earlier) just works. OSX suX. BTW, so do all versions of Winblows, except for NT 3.x & 4.x. 2000 PRO is the one I use, because they didn’t destroy NT too bad going from NT4 to 2000 (NT5), but XP (NT5.1) on is utter crap, so 2000 PRO is the only one that can do modern things, but is still somewhere in the ballpark of working halfway decent like NT4 did. Once APPLE killed off the original system in favor of OSX, there have been NO operating systems that “Just Work”. All of 'em need a “guru” to set them up for the “technopeasants”. Too bad OS9.x is too old to do modern stuff with. Otherwise, I’d set up all my technopeasants with it.

As someone who has done Mac Tech support for 25 years I can assure you that OS X is WAY, WAY less troublesome than OS 9. As a matter of fact, I’ve lost a lot of business because Mac owners need so little support these days. Ahh, for the good old days of INIT conflicts and Font VooDoo and trashing the printer preferences…

[Cheshire_Human]

@Napier

Now, hold on there. NT had a bug in GetBitmap() that would lock the whole machine. I worked with a particularly dedicated developer whose text editor kept crashing my machine. How can an OS with that kind of bug be one of the only one that works?

Ok, let me alter the judgement to “halfway decent”. Note the “halfway”.

And Beyowulff, actually, I never did like 9 much, they changed things from 8 that I liked better the old way. Just that X changed everything I used to like about the old system. I don’t have any X machines, all mine use 9 or earlier. I just “guru” (the term one of my technopeasants uses) X machines for other people.

[Zeriel]

And to think we went to the moon with no gui and 32kb of RAM.

[gaffa]

@Napier

I have probably moved drives between computers, or tried, 5 times and don’t think it’s that cut and dried. First, aren’t there more than one method of controlling which drive is the boot drive? Besides, I’ve had hard drives with funny cable arrangements, and vaguely remember something about two wires in the cable being crossed to counter some unfortunate historic choice about booting order, and a switch or jumper somewhere on the drive to optionally switch that back. I think there are several different kinds of hard drives. Some systems require several other things to be replaced - I have a system at the office that has about 5 things installed such that they block the hard drive coming out. And then there are drive mounts that don’t fit, and cables that don’t reach. It is not as easy as picking up a screwdriver without springing a leak.

Depends on how old the computer is. Everything you say is true…about old IDE hard drives. But if it’s a computer made in the last five years, it has a SATA hard drive, and those cables only go on one way, there is no jumper to set (the boot selection is done in the BIOS)

Maybe it’s one of those things that seem easy to me because I’ve been doing it so often. But still, I have never run across any PC that is a fraction as difficult to work on as a Mac Mini, and I include laptops in that.

[Napier]

Here’s some more input:

I have been using and working on this iMac that I bought Thursday, and pretty much not used the PC for anything since, except accessing files before I had the iMac networked (which took maybe a minute) and printing before I had the printer on the iMac (which actually took 30 seconds, as I timed it).

Without a doubt, this is the sweetest “new computer honeymoon” I have had. It surpasses my first two Sparcstations, which were high on amazement but also high on difficulty (partly because I knew so little and didn’t have any help, not even finding out about the man pages for the first couple months). As far as the ease of getting everything working, this experience is unique. Everything I have set up has taken a small fraction of the time I expected, and none of it has gone sour. And as far as the feel of using this machine, the hardware behavior, the quality of the screen, the keyboard response, the Magic Mouse scrolling and swiping - absolutely unparalleled! The goddam boxes were beautiful, just beautiful, made of finely shaped and seamed cardboard. All the printed docs smell faintly of Grandmother.

I also picked up a Time Capsule yesterday, and installed that to work with Time Machine. Now I have a full automatic incremental backup system in the next room, and even that worked with nary a hitch. So now I feel quite safe about all that I am doing.

[Zeriel]

@Napier

Here’s some more input:

I have been using and working on this iMac that I bought Thursday, and pretty much not used the PC for anything since, except accessing files before I had the iMac networked (which took maybe a minute) and printing before I had the printer on the iMac (which actually took 30 seconds, as I timed it).

Without a doubt, this is the sweetest “new computer honeymoon” I have had. It surpasses my first two Sparcstations, which were high on amazement but also high on difficulty (partly because I knew so little and didn’t have any help, not even finding out about the man pages for the first couple months). As far as the ease of getting everything working, this experience is unique. Everything I have set up has taken a small fraction of the time I expected, and none of it has gone sour. And as far as the feel of using this machine, the hardware behavior, the quality of the screen, the keyboard response, the Magic Mouse scrolling and swiping - absolutely unparalleled! The goddam boxes were beautiful, just beautiful, made of finely shaped and seamed cardboard. All the printed docs smell faintly of Grandmother.

I also picked up a Time Capsule yesterday, and installed that to work with Time Machine. Now I have a full automatic incremental backup system in the next room, and even that worked with nary a hitch. So now I feel quite safe about all that I am doing.

I really wish I could have had your iMac experience. May you never have to interoperate!

[Redwing]

Meh. I think anyone who doesn’t want to know how his computer works is in the same boat with the people who don’t want to know how their car or washing machine works. If you learned how to balance the load or change a tire, you can learn to swap a hard drive.

And if you find an OS that just works, let me know. Something that understands DMP out of the box, and can be added to an existing cluster simply and easily, and that allows me to put an ACL on anything. (While I’m dreaming, it needs to force proper memory management on every application).

[Gary_Robson]

@StarvingButStrong

Going back to the OP: doesn’t anyone else think it is more than a little scuzzy of Scott Adams to allow this ad to run on his page?

Not necessarily his fault. Signing up with these ad networks can let all kinds of annoying stuff onto your site that you didn’t expect (happened to us here at SDMB, in fact). Very, very few sites do their own ad sales these days, and I’d also be willing to bet that Scott Adams doesn’t personally check his site every day. I’m sure someone else manages it.

@cdsilv

As someone who’s worked with more O/S’s than I can remember, all have their strong and weak points.

@Zeriel

Just goes to show. Every OS sucks.

You’re both right. This thread caught me on a frustrated day. I’ve crashed an IBM 370, an Altair, and everything in between. Heck, I’ve crashed Motorola phones and Apple iPods. Some operating systems do certain things really well, and some do others. In my humble opinion, plug & play peripherals is not one of the things that Windows does well.

[Cheshire_Human]

@Gary "Wombat" Robson

In my humble opinion, plug & play peripherals is not one of the things that Windows does well.

Well DUH!. BTW have you ever found ANYTHING that Winblows DOES do well? I haven’t…

[markci]

@gaffa

OK.

But, in fairness, if you set up a Windows machine correctly, you can have every bit as pleasant an experience.

Create a “Standard” (Windows Vista or 7) or “Limited” (XP) user for web browsing. Install Firefox and Adblock Plus.

Save a huge pile of money.

You don’t save a pile of money. Mac notebooks are expensive but the iMac’s carry very little premium over a comparable Windows machine.

[Zeriel]

@Cheshire_Human

Well DUH!. BTW have you ever found ANYTHING that Winblows DOES do well? I haven’t…

Spoken like someone who has never had to maintain U.S. Government compliant security ACLs on files. Linux simply cannot do it out of the box, period, whereas any Windows that has “Professional”, “Business”, or “Server” can.

Windows has the following:

• Much better/more diverse driver support than Linux or OSX
• Much better security paradigms by default
• Windows Clustering is much easier to set up than Linux (does OSX even offer such a thing that isn’t a third-party add-on?)

Yeah, Windows isn’t perfect, and it has its downsides. But it’s not Satan.