on 28/4/02 14:07, Sean at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I'm running OS 9.0.4 on my G3 rev.B MiniTower. I haven't sprung the $200 Cdn
> to upgrade to OS X. Is it worth it?
It depends. Do you think you'd gain from being protected from crashing apps?
You give up some interface responsiveness and app choice but in turn you get
an unearthly degree stability. But, you also _gain_ in terms of your app
choice -- many OS X only apps are being released or are being ported from
*nix (many of them are open source).
> How much RAM would you (not Apple) recommend? I have 448MB physical RAM.
_More_ than enough.
OS can _run_ in 128 MB but can't do anything more than run one or two small
apps. 192 MB will allow you to run Classic but you'll see a _lot_ of disk
thrashing (virtual memory) (I ran OS X at 192 MB for about a week and
promptly upgraded to 320 MB). 256 MB is what I personally consider the
_absolute_ minimum needed to run OS X. I'm running 576 MB now (B&W G3/450)
and virtual memory is _never_ used ("pages" get written to disk but they
never get read from disk). 448 MB is also more than enough to run without
activating virtual memory.
> Is there a speed hit with OS X on a 300MHz G3? Is it noticeable? Does the
> sexiness of OS X outweigh the slowdown?
Yes and no (speed hit). The GUI is more sluggish (especially so since the
Beige G3s have crappy video... you may want to invest in a 16 MB card), but
other things (like opening apps) are noticeably faster. The fact that you
have true pre-emptive multitasking makes up for _any_ slowdown caused by the
eye-candy. When you're waiting for an app to do something you can hop into
another and work as if nothing were happening in the background.
> Which of your favorite applications or utilities don't have OS X versions yet?
> Do they still run in classic mode?
Almost everything I run (with the exception of Outlook Express) is now OS X
native -- Internet Explorer, M$ Office (I'm still running Excel 98 though
b/c I can't stand the new keyboard shortcuts... command-k now does some
stupid insert internet crap rather than delete, command-u (edit cell) is now
underline (who the hell uses _underline_ in a spreadsheet), cmd-b (bold
instead of clear), cmd-i (italic instead of insert)... as a compromise
they've assigned ctrl-i,u,b,k to these functions but that's an unnatural
key-combo on a Mac)), GraphicConverter, iCab.
There are also some OS X-only goodies like OmniWeb and Samba (allows you to
access Windoze machines).
The protected memory is also great. I'd _never_ consider running Netscrape
6.2/Mozilla 1.x under OS 9 since it'd crash the computer every two minutes
but under OS X I can safely test Mozilla (& Netscrape 6.2) without having to
go through a computer restart after it crashes.
> I don't think Epson will write OS X drivers for my Epson Photo 700 printer. Is
> it a pain to prepare stuff in OS X and then go back to classic OS 9 to print?
Epson does have quite a few OS X printer drivers -- I'd check their website
to see if your particular printer is supported.
> Any thing else I should consider?
How much disk space do you have? I would devote _at least_ 2 GB to OS X
alone. I have OS X running _very_ comfortably in 3 GB and OS X takes up
~1.08 GB (1.48 GB free, 450 MB in user folders).
Bonuses of OS X: built-in HTTP, FTP and Telnet servers.
Eric.
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