Best Suited Operating System

[mildmannered]

Hello. I'm about to buy a new computer and I haven't decided which OS to go for. I can afford a MacBook or a Dell Studio 15. Obviously one has the OSX and the other one comes with Windows Vista. My question here is which one is best suited for working on graphics. I'm a part time graphic designer but I actually want to go for a career as a writer/comic book artist. Is there any preference in an specific operating system? Where I can find references of the computers used in the writer/comic business?

 

[ScottALot]

For the graphics artist, go Mac. For ANYTHING ELSE, go

 

[Shane]

For what you intend to do...i think the Mac would be better suited for you.

 

[tlarkin]

It is really all about personal preference. For laptops I prefer macs, they are well built, and they run OS X.

My opinion is heavily biased though.

 

[wardhanster]

if you not been with mac.. go for windows platform and that for either for windows 7 or for xp .. vista is also a good option but only if your system has lots of memory

 

[tlarkin]

if you not been with mac.. go for windows platform and that for either for windows 7 or for xp .. vista is also a good option but only if your system has lots of memory

Windows 7 isn't out and your advice is kind of all over the place. If you are going to say go for a platform you might as well at least explain why. Otherwise you are just going to confuse the guy.

 

[ScottALot]

Win 7 RC - expires soon, but best OS ever.
Win Vista - You can buy this + upgrade to 7 (needs lots of memory, takes up good amt. of HDD space)
Wind XP - Dirt cheap, fast, not too pretty
OSX - Not for everybody, pretty, only get if you've researched.

 

[Concordedly]

Mac is the way to go for graphics. That is one place that I feel Mac's out-perform PC's. Having been a PC guy most of my life, when we did publishing stuff; graphic design, newspaper, magazines the only place I felt comforatable doing this was on a Mac. Something about the basic interface and the organizational abilities that a PC seems to lack also made me enjoy working with graphics on a Mac.

Pagemaker and now Illustrator are great programs that work best with Mac.

 

[tlarkin]

Win 7 RC - expires soon, but best OS ever.
Win Vista - You can buy this + upgrade to 7 (needs lots of memory, takes up good amt. of HDD space)
Wind XP - Dirt cheap, fast, not too pretty
OSX - Not for everybody, pretty, only get if you've researched.

How does this help the poster? I am not trying to be a jerk here at all, but lets look at what you are saying.

A release candidate is the best OS ever? Yeah because I want to run my comic and writing business off a beta OS....

Vista, you are saying it needs lots of memory? Lots of memory to run a comic and writing busienss?

XP - you say it is cheaper but not as pretty? Does that affect the posters position, wants, needs, or requirements?

OS X - only get OS X if you have researched it? WTF does this even mean?


None of this is relevant advice to what the main poster is offering. All of this does is going to confuse the heck out of them. Most people make assumptions or like to give out misinformation when it comes to qualifying someone for what they need, versus your opinion.

Let me start over since I kind of did the same thing, but I did recommend they get the Mac and for many reasons, but before I can justify it, we need to know what the OP plans on doing/using?

1) What applications will you be using?

2) What preferences do you have on an OS?

3) What needs do you have of a laptop? Portability, battery life, screen, wireless, etc?

4) what is your absolute highest budget?

 

[mildmannered]

1) What applications will you be using?
Probably Illustrator, Photoshop, and text editors like Word.

2) What preferences do you have on an OS?
First of all I have worked on Windows all my life but I also know how to use a Mac. Then it is very important that the OS does not crash or stop working.

3) What needs do you have of a laptop? Portability, battery life, screen, wireless, etc?
I think portability is the MOST, but then we have wireless which I think is also important.

4) What is your absolute highest budget?
I think that no more than 1200, but if I can get something cheaper it will be better.

 

[gamerman4]

Both Windows and OSX have versions of the application you are using. If you already have any of these programs, they will not work with the platform they aren't made for.

Neither OS will unexpectedly stop working. Heavy photoshop work can bring any system to its knees though. I've used the Adobe suite on both Windows and OSX and they both are just as capable of doing what you need. It honestly comes down solely to personal preference. Use what is comfortable to you. If you don't know your way around an OS then it will only slow you down. Conversely, learning the ins and outs of a foreign OS can help you make a better choice and prepare you in the future if you decide to go multi-platform and use both systems.

 

[chrisalv14]

Go for the mac, you wouldnt wanna give it bac
(( hey that rymes ))

 

[tlarkin]

1) What applications will you be using?
Probably Illustrator, Photoshop, and text editors like Word.

2) What preferences do you have on an OS?
First of all I have worked on Windows all my life but I also know how to use a Mac. Then it is very important that the OS does not crash or stop working.

3) What needs do you have of a laptop? Portability, battery life, screen, wireless, etc?
I think portability is the MOST, but then we have wireless which I think is also important.

4) What is your absolute highest budget?
I think that no more than 1200, but if I can get something cheaper it will be better.

It is of my experience and opinon that Unix resource management > Windows resource management, and you will gain better performance out a mac and better overall experience. The new Uni-body macbooks now come with nice video cards, and with the Nvidia APIs it will allow things like CS4 to dump work onto your Nvidia GPU in those new Macbooks.

The Mac will have all features you want built in. ABGN wireless, bluetooth, and IR sensor for all your wireless needs.

 

[tlarkin]

Both Windows and OSX have versions of the application you are using. If you already have any of these programs, they will not work with the platform they aren't made for.

Not trying to nitpick, but the Windows versions do work on Macs, via crossover API.

Plus when you buy an adobe product you get a license for both in case you want to switch platforms, however you license only allows one install at a time.

 

[wardhanster]

Windows 7 isn't out and your advice is kind of all over the place. If you are going to say go for a platform you might as well at least explain why. Otherwise you are just going to confuse the guy.

my bad ... thanks for the tip...
i ve been using windows 7 for past 3 months now .. and found of very new and user friendly features... like the startup recovery app which runs automaticaly in case of a system crash or a blue screen of death, appart from it you have more authority over the way system behave, appart from it all it is more user friendly, On the brightest side , win 7 uses very less memory as compared for vista...
and more secure... whole point is that .. if you are buying a vista why not wait and buy windows 7 which is far more efficient OS than vista or xp and will receive higher degree of consumer support available by Microsoft guys ...
use it try it and buy it...

 

[gamerman4]

Not trying to nitpick, but the Windows versions do work on Macs, via crossover API.

Plus when you buy an adobe product you get a license for both in case you want to switch platforms, however you license only allows one install at a time.

Thanks, I did not know you get a license for both (although it does make sense, It's bad business to platform-limit licenses). Does the installation disk allow you to choose your platform or do you have to have an OSX/Windows specific disk?

Crossover is not a perfect solution though, I've never personally used it but I have a hard time imagining it could run apps at full performance, apps like Word would probably do fine but a RAM heavy app like photoshop, and considering CS4 is graphics accelerated as well, I don't know how well it would work when compared to just running it completely native. Of course there is Boot Camp which can be useful if all you want in an AIO PC but if you want a Mac to be a Mac, then you should use OSX without having to switch between. Also, I hate that the only disk format you can use to switch between them is FAT32 which limits you to 4GB file size (if you know of a better file system that works between the two, without 3rd party software, tell me because that would really help out in the future.

I am not sure about your argument of memory management in Unix and Windows. It may be better in a slight sense but from personal experience, I have crashed Photoshop plenty of times when working with large photoshop files on both OSX and Windows. Once the history fills up and it has all those older versions cached, even the best memory management will fail eventually. I think good memory management has more benefit with having a lot of apps open and using RAM than just having one or two big hungry apps.

 

[tlarkin]

Thanks, I did not know you get a license for both (although it does make sense, It's bad business to platform-limit licenses). Does the installation disk allow you to choose your platform or do you have to have an OSX/Windows specific disk?

I can't recall, because CS1 came with both windows and OS X disks when you bought it. Also, we buy volume licenses at work, and they send me both the windows DVD and the OS X DVD and we have 500 installs per a building, regardless of format.

Crossover is not a perfect solution though, I've never personally used it but I have a hard time imagining it could run apps at full performance, apps like Word would probably do fine but a RAM heavy app like photoshop, and considering CS4 is graphics accelerated as well, I don't know how well it would work when compared to just running it completely native. Of course there is Boot Camp which can be useful if all you want in an AIO PC but if you want a Mac to be a Mac, then you should use OSX without having to switch between. Also, I hate that the only disk format you can use to switch between them is FAT32 which limits you to 4GB file size (if you know of a better file system that works between the two, without 3rd party software, tell me because that would really help out in the future.

I have an actual windows app in my production machines that runs via cross over API. On my personal Macs I run IE and a few other Windows only apps via CrossOver API. I have found it to actually work quite well. You do seem to take a bit of a performance hit when apps load for the first time because they have to run with in bottles they create for that Application. Also, each bottle will take up more (but not significant) HD space. Other than that, the app itself still has native access to all your hardware and Macs and PCs both run x86 hardware so they are all the same hardware wise these days, minus the actual hardware design. So, they use the components. You don't even need to use FAT32, you can use the native HFS+ file system. Plus if you wanted to, Macs can now read/write NTFS via FUSE from Google.

I am not sure about your argument of memory management in Unix and Windows. It may be better in a slight sense but from personal experience, I have crashed Photoshop plenty of times when working with large photoshop files on both OSX and Windows. Once the history fills up and it has all those older versions cached, even the best memory management will fail eventually. I think good memory management has more benefit with having a lot of apps open and using RAM than just having one or two big hungry apps.

Any OS and application is bound to run amuck, and suck up tons of resources. It happens in OS X just as it happens in Windows. However, OS X runs Unix, which means everything is controlled by a system daemon. That system daemon will always cache things from memory and hard drive in the background. When the daemon is not being used it goes to sleep. This will take up initially a slight bit more CPU but will cut down on hard disk I/O a ton, so the system is not paging virtual memory over and over again, and hard disk I/O is always the biggest bottle neck. So, instead of it accessing the hard disk to scan for something it will ask that system daemon instead.

I am sure Windows 7 is a lot better than previous versions of Windows but I have yet to really read up on the memory management behind their tech.

 

[dubesinhower]

imho, either one you pick works. photoshop (or any other adobe product) will handle the same on windows and mac due to similar shortcut keys. i would buy a computer based on hardware rather than solely on software.

if you buy a windows computer now, most vendors will give you a free upgrade to windows 7 when it comes out.

btw virtualizing windows apps on mac or vice versa is shitty. you are losing performance HARDCORE. stay native until virtualization improves.

 

[pokedome]

Get a mac with OSx And XP! Using Boot Camp! Then no mater what is the best you have it!

 

[tlarkin]

btw virtualizing windows apps on mac or vice versa is shitty. you are losing performance HARDCORE. stay native until virtualization improves.

What basis do you have to prove this? Virtual machines, while they don't perform as well as native, almost perform the same. You are just putting a virtual layer between the software and hardware, and it keeps getting better every release.