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Any system administrator types out there??
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<blockquote data-quote="katatak" data-source="post: 23937"><p><strong>Macs are much less work to configure and maintain</strong></p><p></p><p>OK, all operating systems crash at sometime or other. However, the one up that Apple has is that it designs the hardware AND writes the software. They NEED to be better at it than other vendors. There's no chance to blame the hardware or the software IF you wrote/built both! Also Microsoft Office for Macintosh is great! I like it better on a Mac than on Windows!</p><p></p><p>Having used both Mac and Windows (Windows NT and W2K) I have to say that Microsoft has come a long way in making things work out of the box, but they're not there yet. </p><p></p><p>For example, at the school where I do some volunteer sys admin work I saw a student struggling with his digital camera trying to install the correct drivers for his camera and downloading his pictures to store them on a floppy. When he asked to try one of the Macs, of course I said yes.</p><p></p><p>He expected to have to install drivers but by the time he'd plugged in his camera to the correct port OS X had already detected a camera and that there were picutres to download. He was stunned when I told him to stop looking for drivers and showed him the folder with his photos already there. He could also burn his pictures to a CD. He's hardly ever touched a PC again. (this capability is because of Unix's kernel design in which the basic drivers are already included in the kernel, unlike Microsoft's micro-kernel approach in NT).</p><p></p><p>New Window XP boxes are making their way into the school at this point and I'm the NT/2000/XP expert it seems. I've spent four times as much time configuring these machines as I would and Macintosh runningn OS X. OS X setup consists of adding a user iwth administratice privilages, enabling root, adding a regular unprivilaged user and a few applications. Done! One restart only after insalling the initial update.</p><p></p><p>The XP boxes I had to edit the local secutiry configuration in the Administrative services contol pannel to make the logins work the way we wanted. THEN I had to remove Notront Anit-virus from the machines (we have other security measures in place) which means turning off the service before uninstalling AND rebooting the machine. Of course there are the reboots after installing the OS updates...at least 5 restarts when you take into account the applications which require restart. </p><p></p><p>I have to spend soo much time turning OFF what Microsoft leaves on by default. Apple has all those things already configured. Networking has to be turned on instead of connecting by default. Updates? Well. there are WAY fewer critical secutiry updates with the Macs and fewer forced restarts. The Windows Registry is partialy to blame for this. Installing applications on a Mac is fequently done by just drgging the application to the Appllications Folder and using it. Uninstalling software in Windows frequentlly requires editing of the registry by and uninstall program. Mac programs uninstall lby dragging them to the Trash and emptying it. All that's left is (maybe) a small preferences file.</p><p></p><p>In 3 years of maintaining these machines I've never had to re-install. Complaints about how slow they are getting are usualy becuase the users have way to many applications open or they have filled the hard drive choking the system. Making sure that old applications and old files are removed remedies the situation.</p><p></p><p>Having worked in broadcasting and recording as well, All the audio technicians I met swore by Macs, even before OS X, for the simple reason that Classic Mac OS was a stripped down OS with NO networking built-in. That's a not fun for a computer geek but when you're editing audio and video its a god send. A VERY basic rule when editing audio or video is <strong>Turn off ALL networking and printing</strong>. If you don't, you WILL have dropped frames. On a Mac, turning off all network connections is dead easy even for a non-privilaged user. With windows this is more complicated.</p><p></p><p>As for tweaks, you don't have to tweak it at all. Most things are already there. Early releases of OS X were missing some of things in the BSD subsystem which is frustrating if you just have to have the latest php, apache or Perl. The web server works out of the box just by turning it on in System Preferences --> Sharing. IIS is absent in W2K thankfully! The only thing you have to do with Apache is tweak the configuration file to enable php and CGI scripts and a few other enhancements that should only be used by experienced System Admins. But most users will never use their webserver and it remains off. In short, by installing Apple Developer Tolls you can tweak to your hearts content, even compile from source. But none of that is neccessary in most working environments.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, Linux is not quite ready for prime-time in audio and video editing. There are some high end applications used in the film industry (LOTR used a render wall lf LInux servers), but they aren't available to us mortals. I think much of that will change with the release of the 2.6 Linux kernel.</p><p></p><p>David Fedoruk</p><p>Certificate in Internet Systems Administration (UBC)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="katatak, post: 23937"] [b]Macs are much less work to configure and maintain[/b] OK, all operating systems crash at sometime or other. However, the one up that Apple has is that it designs the hardware AND writes the software. They NEED to be better at it than other vendors. There's no chance to blame the hardware or the software IF you wrote/built both! Also Microsoft Office for Macintosh is great! I like it better on a Mac than on Windows! Having used both Mac and Windows (Windows NT and W2K) I have to say that Microsoft has come a long way in making things work out of the box, but they're not there yet. For example, at the school where I do some volunteer sys admin work I saw a student struggling with his digital camera trying to install the correct drivers for his camera and downloading his pictures to store them on a floppy. When he asked to try one of the Macs, of course I said yes. He expected to have to install drivers but by the time he'd plugged in his camera to the correct port OS X had already detected a camera and that there were picutres to download. He was stunned when I told him to stop looking for drivers and showed him the folder with his photos already there. He could also burn his pictures to a CD. He's hardly ever touched a PC again. (this capability is because of Unix's kernel design in which the basic drivers are already included in the kernel, unlike Microsoft's micro-kernel approach in NT). New Window XP boxes are making their way into the school at this point and I'm the NT/2000/XP expert it seems. I've spent four times as much time configuring these machines as I would and Macintosh runningn OS X. OS X setup consists of adding a user iwth administratice privilages, enabling root, adding a regular unprivilaged user and a few applications. Done! One restart only after insalling the initial update. The XP boxes I had to edit the local secutiry configuration in the Administrative services contol pannel to make the logins work the way we wanted. THEN I had to remove Notront Anit-virus from the machines (we have other security measures in place) which means turning off the service before uninstalling AND rebooting the machine. Of course there are the reboots after installing the OS updates...at least 5 restarts when you take into account the applications which require restart. I have to spend soo much time turning OFF what Microsoft leaves on by default. Apple has all those things already configured. Networking has to be turned on instead of connecting by default. Updates? Well. there are WAY fewer critical secutiry updates with the Macs and fewer forced restarts. The Windows Registry is partialy to blame for this. Installing applications on a Mac is fequently done by just drgging the application to the Appllications Folder and using it. Uninstalling software in Windows frequentlly requires editing of the registry by and uninstall program. Mac programs uninstall lby dragging them to the Trash and emptying it. All that's left is (maybe) a small preferences file. In 3 years of maintaining these machines I've never had to re-install. Complaints about how slow they are getting are usualy becuase the users have way to many applications open or they have filled the hard drive choking the system. Making sure that old applications and old files are removed remedies the situation. Having worked in broadcasting and recording as well, All the audio technicians I met swore by Macs, even before OS X, for the simple reason that Classic Mac OS was a stripped down OS with NO networking built-in. That's a not fun for a computer geek but when you're editing audio and video its a god send. A VERY basic rule when editing audio or video is [B]Turn off ALL networking and printing[/B]. If you don't, you WILL have dropped frames. On a Mac, turning off all network connections is dead easy even for a non-privilaged user. With windows this is more complicated. As for tweaks, you don't have to tweak it at all. Most things are already there. Early releases of OS X were missing some of things in the BSD subsystem which is frustrating if you just have to have the latest php, apache or Perl. The web server works out of the box just by turning it on in System Preferences --> Sharing. IIS is absent in W2K thankfully! The only thing you have to do with Apache is tweak the configuration file to enable php and CGI scripts and a few other enhancements that should only be used by experienced System Admins. But most users will never use their webserver and it remains off. In short, by installing Apple Developer Tolls you can tweak to your hearts content, even compile from source. But none of that is neccessary in most working environments. Unfortunately, Linux is not quite ready for prime-time in audio and video editing. There are some high end applications used in the film industry (LOTR used a render wall lf LInux servers), but they aren't available to us mortals. I think much of that will change with the release of the 2.6 Linux kernel. David Fedoruk Certificate in Internet Systems Administration (UBC) [/QUOTE]
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