Oink Oink

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Linux, Ubuntu

Oink Oink

So Windows Vista is a powerful success, and Mac OS X Leopard absolutely will be here later, may be this year. Ubuntu is making inroads in the Linux world. But they are all still Pigs. I steal that phrase from John C Dvorak.Let me explain. 5 years ago, hardware was playing catch-up. Software was more demanding on the hardware, and hardware manufacturers for the most part were trying to catch up. Think about the fact that you could almost never have enough memory in a PC. No issue how much you put in, the system would presently use all of it. And do you remember the days of having to clear out your hard drive 'cause it kept filling up? Now you can pick up a fastidious shiny disk for real peanuts.

But the tables have turned somewhat. The hardware is now far beyond anything your software can handle. John, points out in his article that processors are the big issue. None of the OS's today can actually handle multi core processing. To quote Dvorak: "Nobody wants to face the fact that Linux, Mac OSX, Microsoft Windows XP, and Vista are based on OS designs that are as old as the hills. Surely OS X and Windows have been gussied up with their pretty icons and lots of colors, but that is just as the lipstick on a pig. The difference today between the Mac and the PC is that the Mac has better lipstick." So, I think the first person to the multi core finish line will have significant advantage over the rest of the world. If the operating system can competently assign different cores to special processes then we'll have a rocking multi tasking environment.

So far this year I have to run Ubuntu, Vista, Mac, and XP. I am yet to decide which one actually works for me. I truly love Ubuntu, but it lacks the ability to run a few of my core applications. Windows Vista was a nice change from XP, and I see some brilliant improvements. But the lack of support for some applications, and hardware frustrates me. Mac rules the roost, but once again I have applications that won't quite work properly, and because it's a PPC version I cannot run windows in either parallels or boot camp. This has left me with Windows XP. I can do what I need to, but it's been 5 years on this platform, and I feel the need for a change. Maybe Ubuntu can sort Wine out? Will Vista Service Pack 1 address the incompatibility problems? Or will Mac OS X wear the best make up and steal the show?