windows, mac, or linux?

[Thumper]

Cheraphy wrote:

to suggest the markup in price is purely for the sake of higher quality is ludicrous.

I never claimed that you're not paying for a logo. That is indeed part of it. But to suggest that Apple parts aren't extremely high quality is also ludicrous. While my MacBook might last 10 years before hardware failure (or the components are so out of date it's not worth using), many other manufacturers' have a habit of failing within 2-3 years. You pay for the logo, yes. But you also pay for quality control.

cppprogrammer297 wrote:

Although, you do have to pay $99 per year to program for it with the Mac developer program.

That only applies if you want to develop for iOS or have things put in the app store, though. Which I have no interest of doing. I suppose $99/year isn't much to pay for a dev kit when you're making money off of their distribution system.

BHXSpecter wrote:

The reason it seems there are no viruses for OSX and Linux...

And because they're not as mainstream as Windows. You can bet that the day OS x takes 90% of the market you'll start seeing viruses and malware appear for it.

[Dy7SLyTq]

I suppose $99/year isn't much to pay for a dev kit when you're making money off of their distribution system.

thats not gauranteed. if you think about it its kind of like the gold rush. many developers are flocking towards it, but not very many people are getting rich off it. for every well known app theres like 10 that arent. and for that matter there are also free popular apps. im not arguing that its a high price, but the money back is only if you get in on a good app like angry birds

[jwkNwA7f]

There are still very little viruses and malware for OS X. It is made to be secure. Linux has even less viruses and malware OS X.

There are many viruses and malware for Windows. You can easily make one in a minute or two. Not, that I make viruses, because I don't. The reason I know how is that I am making a very simple antivirus console application that will scan through batch files for viruses.

[jwkNwA7f]

+1 for DTSCodes last post.

[Dy7SLyTq]

There are still very little viruses and malware for OS X. It is made to be secure. Linux has even less viruses and malware OS X.

i would like to know where you saw that. ive seen plenty of osx/linux viruses. when i was interning at a company they had me in the antivirus room downloading drivers so their product could recognize it or something like that, and the external hdd i was saving it too already had 700 gigs of viruses on it. and that 700 was split roughly three ways for each os (cant remember the exact number)

[jwkNwA7f]

@DTSCode I have googled this, and I hound this many times. I am not saying I don't believe you. I have heard what I said many times. I know there are many viruses for Mac, just there are less than Windows.

[chrisname]

Thumper wrote:

to suggest that Apple parts aren't extremely high quality is also ludicrous

This is ridiculous, Apple use exactly the same components as any other manufacturer; namely, ones made in a certain Chinese factory known for the high suicide rate amongst its workers. The "build quality" argument also holds no water: there's next to nothing you can screw up building a PC unless you have no idea what you're doing. The only thing I can think of that someone might get wrong out of laziness or lack of expertise is not putting the thermal paste on correctly. Everything else is a matter of simply being able to read and follow basic instructions. There's even standardised colour coding so you know where to put everything. It's like arguing that someone could have a higher build quality with Lego - building a PC requires literally as much dexterity and less creativity. It's completely ridiculous to suggest that Apple computers are somehow higher quality when they use exactly the same cheap hardware from exactly the same third sweatshop factories presumably put together in exactly the same warehouses by exactly the same barely-qualified personnel doing exactly the same extremely simple job.

Face it, you're either paying extra for a shiny box with a glowing picture of an apple on it containing the exact same low-quality hardware as any less-shiny box, or you're paying extra for a high-quality UNIX-like operating system which just so happens to require (legally, if not technically) you to run it on one of those shiny boxes.

[z05DSL3A]

I suppose $99/year isn't much to pay for a dev kit when you're making money off of their distribution system.

What are you talking about, isn't much to pay. Do you know how much I pay for my MSDN subscription? That's right a hell of a lot more than that...oh wait, what.

[Dy7SLyTq]

anyone can say that however. someone could google it and see your post and then they would think that. it doesnt make it true however. new malware comes out every day. av databases have to be updated daily. even if your research was at one point right that doesnt mean it is any more

edit: this is in response to cppprogrammer

[Thumper]

chrisname wrote:

<Headstrong argument>

Aye. I suppose it's no use trying to convince you otherwise. We'll believe what we want to believe.
I'll get more mileage out of my Mac than I would any other laptop that I didn't create myself. I am certain of this.
Your "build quality" argument also holds no water. It's not the worker's who physically assemble the computer that I'm questioning. You can teach a monkey to put one together. It's the design behind it that I question. You would be a fool to suggest that no matter how you design a computer, it will work well and be of the same quality as something specifically created to be (which is what it seems that you're getting at).
We can talk ourselves in circles all day and never make any progress. So I won't be saying anything more on this topic.

Also, about the shiny box. When did presentation become a bad thing? I'll take all the hate in the world for having the best damn looking laptop on the market.
I don't know, maybe that makes me a jackass.

cppprogrammer297 wrote:

It is made to be secure

That's a load of crap though. Windows was "made to be secure" as well. The reason there is so much malware for Windows operating systems (aside of some really silly design choices) is that the OS is so popular; there's more money to be made harassing Windows users.

[jwkNwA7f]

@DTSCode I know that, but I had heard this from a few people. And you are right that there are many viruses for Macs. Although, Apple did design their OS to be secure. There are several antivirus apps for OS X, so there are definitely enough viruses for OS X to have antivirus (which I do have). But, there are more viruses for Windows. Like I said before I can make a very harmful virus in a minute on Windows, because I am making antivirus that can scan batch files. I also know there are other ways to make them then just batch file; I just don't know how to scan through them.

[Dy7SLyTq]

once again... please show the statistics where you have seen this. you can make quick viruses for windows? thats good. i can quickly write exes quickly that would wreak havock with linux and osx

[Dy7SLyTq]

Windows was "made to be secure" as well.

unfortunately nothing will ever be as secure as flynn... er encom os 12.

[Veltas]

I seem to shift it a lot but at the moment I'm using GNU/Linux (Debian) for pretty much everything except native PC games (even if works reasonably with WINE / has a linux version), which I run on Windows 8.

I wouldn't be surprised to see people program in either Windows or Mac. They both have good IDEs (especially Visual Studio) and their market coverage makes it a fruitful endeavour. They have very fleshed-out documentation and flat APIs (which makes it slightly easier to develop for).

As for playing games on Linux? Doesn't seem like it's worth it to me, unless you've got a good set of games that all somehow work on Linux and can't afford to fork out the ~$100 for a Windows license (and don't want to rip it either).

[jwkNwA7f]

@DTSCode http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000737.htm

The some of the others were on forums, which you mentioned and I totally agree are not very reliable.

There was one other in particular that I can't find now.

Like I said before there are many viruses for Mac, just not as much as Windows.

OS X is built on the UNIX kernel so it less likely (but very possible to get viruses as mentioned in the first link.

[Dy7SLyTq]

i see no where on there that it says there are less. its built on the freebsd kernel, not the unix kernel. and while it might have been secure at one time, its not as updated as ms windows. while i do agree with the fact that there are more people for windows, that doesnt make it less secure.

[jwkNwA7f]

Read Number one under answers.

DTSCode wrote:

while i do agree with the fact that there are more people for windows, that doesnt make it less secure.

Yes, I do agree with that, but that was not my reasoning for saying it. My reason is that it is built on the UNIX kernel, which it does say on computerhope.com for number 1 on answers.

[jwkNwA7f]

Read number one under answers.

DTSCode wrote:

while i do agree with the fact that there are more people for windows, that doesnt make it less secure.

Yes, I agree, but that is not my reasoning. My reasoning is that it is built on the UNIX kernel (see number one under answers).

[Dy7SLyTq]

once again... no where does it say there are less. and once again... i dont care what computer hope says, the freebsd kernel isnt updated quickly enough to be that secure. number two: mac isnt really secure. i have found many holes in the os.

[chrisname]

Thumper wrote:

I'll get more mileage out of my Mac than I would any other laptop that I didn't create myself. I am certain of this.

But have you ever done an empirical test? Have you ever read any kind of evidence? Of course you haven't. What you've probably read is Apple marketing data that you've chosen to believe for some reason, and are now projecting it onto real life because you already believe it. This is a known cognitive bias, the tendency of humans to be more accepting of evidence that supports their already-held beliefs even when contrary evidence is better. You're accepting Apple "evidence" and ignoring their conflict of interest because you want to believe that the hardware you own (or prefer) is better than the hardware you don't. Go ahead and prove me wrong with some empirical evidence.

Your "build quality" argument also holds no water.

It does, you just chose to ignore it (or else misunderstood it somehow). That point was against the idea that Apple computers somehow have better "build quality" than other manufacturers despite being assembled in exactly the same way. That idea can now be safely discarded.

It's the design behind it that I question. You would be a fool to suggest that no matter how you design a computer, it will work well and be of the same quality as something specifically created to be (which is what it seems that you're getting at).

The "design behind it"? How vague can you get? And besides, once again, they're exactly the same! They all use ATX or similar motherboards and cases, they all use Intel-based processors, they all use NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards, they all use PCI, AGP and PCIe buses, they all use SATA and IDE, they use exactly the same specifications for everything. This isn't a matter of what you "believe" and I find it ironic that you call my argument "headstrong" and imply that it's based on belief and then talk about your mileage with Apple hardware. That's completely based on your subjective experience which is totally irrelevant to this kind of discussion; what I'm talking about are irrefutable facts: everything about Apple and non-Apple PCs is almost identical such that there's no room for real, measurable differences in quality. If you can find even a modicum of objective, factual evidence that suggests otherwise, that Apple hardware somehow really is better quality than PC hardware even though it's exactly the same and made in exactly the same factories (or if you can prove that it's not the same and not made in the same factories), I will reconsider my position. There's no room in a discussion about what is better for subjective experience, and that is the core of your argument. Subjective experience belongs only in arguments about taste and preference. This thread is (or was) about preference, but now you're arguing about what is better, and that's not a subjective matter.

If you want it, my personal opinion on the matter, since I haven't quite made it explicit yet, is that Apple computers are PCs, and all prebuilt PCs are of approximately equal value and quality (given equivalent specifications) but that Apple charge a lot more for it. Actually, those are facts, my opinion is that Apple is charging for form and brand (that may not be a fact, but if it's a fact that the quality is identical (which it is), then I don't see what else you could be paying for, except maybe the OS (in which case, continue reading)). I also consider it a fact that Mac OS X is a higher-quality operating system than Windows, but I use Windows because it's more useful to me because video games.

Also, about the shiny box. When did presentation become a bad thing? I'll take all the hate in the world for having the best damn looking laptop on the market.

Nice strawman. I didn't say it's a bad thing, but it is a superficiality that you are now admitting to buying into, and by the way, that makes your opinion less valuable.

That's a load of crap though. Windows was "made to be secure" as well. The reason there is so much malware for Windows operating systems (aside of some really silly design choices) is that the OS is so popular; there's more money to be made harassing Windows users.

I actually disagree with this (well, partly, anyway). I do think that UNIX-alike operating systems are, generally speaking, inherently more secure than Windows, and that includes Mac OS X. Just because Windows is designed or intended to be a certain way ("was made to be secure as well"), doesn't mean it is a certain way - I don't know how someone can possibly argue that. On the other hand, I also think that the popularity is more important than the actual security of the system. I'm certain that there have been and are now bugs in Linux and Mac OS X which would allow an attacker to compromise the system, but due to a combination of lack of interest from malicious software developers (due to lack of desktop popularity) as well as, in the case of Linux, a (presumed) high rate of bug-finding due to its open source codebase, these bugs just aren't found before they can be exploited. If Linux or OS X was more popular on the desktop, then I do think it would suffer from malware as well. Maybe not as much as Windows does, because as I said I do believe UNIX-based operating systems, correctly implemented, are inherently more secure, but it would definitely occur more than it does now. I'd also like to address the point that Linux is more popular on the server than Windows before someone has a chance to bring it up. That's true, but, Linux or not, servers are usually run by people with far more expertise where network security is concerned than are desktops, so the risk of failure or, even worse, being caught is much greater for attacking servers than for desktops. As with the relative popularity, the risk/reward ratio is just too skewed in favour of risk.