Cool Mac Gear

Last Friday, MacFixIt posted an assessment, based on hundreds of reader submissions, of why millions of users are sticking with Mac OS 9, and what Apple needs to do to get larger numbers of Mac users to switch to Mac OS X.

It's a topic worth pondering, and I decided to borrow the general categories of reasons they cited for not switching as an outline and fill in my own observations and comments. Personally, I've switched, and I haven't done more than a few days' work in OS 9 in the past four months, and virtually none in the past six weeks (although I do spend a couple of hours in OS 8.6 on my old PowerBook 1400 most days). My iBook isn't even set up for production work in OS 9, but I'm still glad I can boot into it if I need to.

But why not make the switch if you're still running OS 9? Here are some potential reasons to hold off:

• Troubleshooting

Many users have built up a frame of reference for troubleshooting OS 9 and are reluctant to start from scratch climbing the learning curve with a completely new system.

The fact that OS X is basically pretty solid mitigates this objection somewhat, but it can't be denied that one needs to develop a whole new set of maintenance and troubleshooting skills. Happily, if you own a machine that can still boot OS 9, your can use your familiar old tools like Norton Utilities and Disk Warrior for a while yet.

In my own OS X Odyssey I've discovered that OS X requires a lot more frequent maintenance and tinkering than OS 9 did. Helpful utilities like Cocktail and MacJanitor, et al. make this fairly easy, but I do miss the install-it-and-forget-it aspect of OS 9.

• Publishing And Printing

The lack of an OS X native version of QuarkXpress was a major roadblock until recently for many professionals in the prepress and publishing industries. OS X printing support is cumbersome and mediocre compared with the Classic OS. Graphics and page layout software is astronomically expensive, representing a massive cost outlay for large operations with many computers. Older high-end machines that perform well for particular tasks using contemporary software aren't supported by OS X, making the cost of switching even higher if system upgrades are necessary.

• Performance/Resource requirements

Despite some improvement with Jaguar, and reported substantial speed gains with Jaguar, OS X interface performance is still poky compared with OS 9, which runs like lightning on even moderately powerful Macs. As I've personally observed even with the relatively undemanding applications I use, one takes a significant productivity knock when switching to OS X. I don't doubt that it looms even larger for those who run more power-hungry applications.

You also need less RAM and hard drive capacity with OS 9 setups than for OS X, and OS 9 system configurations can be backed up to removable media.

There seems to be a sizable consensus that while OS X is a cool OS for hobbyists and home computer users, when you really want to get your work done efficiently, it's still tough to beat OS 9.

• Resentment of Apple's forcing the switch

I have long argued that despite Apple's anxiety about getting users to upgrade to OS X, putting the proverbial gun to their heads by arbitrarily terminating OS 9 boot capability was counterproductive. Apple has backtracked substantially from the plan announced last September to end OS 9 booting by January, 2003. New iBooks, Titanium PowerBooks, eMacs, and G4 towers can all still boot into OS 9. However, the bad taste of threatened coercion lingers, and for many the iMacs' and AlBooks' inability to boot into Classic is an annoyance and an inconvenience for a varity of reasons, even for those who would have run mainly in OS X anyway.

• Apps Getting Worse?

There are complaints that performance in some of the high-profile OS X native applications is inferior to that of their Classic Mac OS analogs. Personally, for most of the applications I use I've forund the opposite is true. Browsers are a salutary example. However, if your main production application is slower and buggier in OS X than OS 9, it's a definite disincentive to switch.

• Inertia, or "It's all I need"

As noted, OS 9 works pretty darned well. I've gradually come to like OS X, but I would find it no real hardship to go back to OS 9, which I also like a lot, and I would get my work done faster. OS 9 is a wonderful performer on the faster 604e machines and any G3 or G4. I consider a 700 MHz G3 with Quartx Extreme support the minimum system for runnng OS X without a lot of frustration. If you have a more modest system thats doing a good job for you in OS 9, and will have to buy a new computer in order to run OS X satisfactorily, why be in a rush?

• Missing Applications/Functionality/drivers

There are still a bunch of OS 9 applications and peripheral drivers for which there are no adequate substitutes in OS X. Personally, the handful of OS 9 applications I would really find it a pain to try and get along without work well in OS X Classic mode, but that isn't the case for all programs, and certainly not for peripheral interfaces.

So there you have it. I like OS X despite its myriad aggravations and angularities, and I won't be switching back, but I certainly don't fault anyone for sticking with OS 9 as long it's doing the job for them satisfactorily. There's a law of diminishing returns that applies, however. OS X is the future, and there will be increasing frustration for those who resist the switch as they are locked out of more and more state of the art features and programs.

Thank you

From anonymous

Charles,

Thank you for publishing that article on kernel panics. Hopefully it will help a lot of people prevent themselves from unnecessarily corrupting their hard disk directories, and eliminate those kernel panics.

Sincerely,
anonymous

Swap file peril

From: S J Nielsen

Hello Charles,

I thought I'd share a cautionary tale about pushing OS X too hard with limited RAM. I have 192 megs in my 266 mhz Wallstreet, which is adequate for my typical use, but this past weekend I got curious about X11 and all the open source apps out there. Apple recommends at least 256 megs of RAM for X11, but I went ahead and installed it anyway, and then I installed the KDE desktop environment on top of that, and finally I installed OpenOffice as well.

I had all this up and running in addition to my usual collection of OS X applications, which includes a browser, word processor, email client and a few utilities. Expectedly, performance was very sluggish, but unexpected was the message telling me that there was no more disk space for swap files. Since I have over 3 gigs of empty space on that partition, I must have had about 40 swap files.

I immediately logged out, but that barely helped at all-- I went from only 36 megs free to 144 megs free. At this point I noticed my desktop icons were scattered and some of them were blank. I restarted the computer, but all of my Finder and Dock settings were back to their defaults. Even some shareware I had installed that was past its trial period was reactivated as though I'd just installed it.

Apparently the swap files overwrote my system prefs, which I didn't know was possible. (Some quick Google searching indicated that this is what happened). So there may be good reasons to move your swap files to another partition or drive after all. I created artificial pressures that lead to this problem, but people with smaller drives or partitions could run into this without being adventurous like I was.

By the way, I was very impressed with KDE on my brief glimpse. I was especially impressed with the endless options for customization-- you can choose precisely how much eye candy you want (or don't want). If Apple gave me that much control over Quartz, performance on my Wallstreet might move from tolerable to satisfactory.

-Steve N

Hi Steve;

Thanks for sharing that cautionary chronicle. Useful information to have.

Re: KDE, I think that Linux for the desktop is sneaking up on both Windows and the Mac OS. Apple would be well-advised to offer Mac OS X users more discretion over how much of the bells & whistles stuff they want to use.

As I've said here before, I would be perfectly happy with a GUI that looked like System 6 so long as it offered the functionality and speed I crave.

In fact, I love the clean, austere look of System 6.

Charles

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore