OSX crash at glasto...

Yewen · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:00

Never had a crash on XP running on 3 machines since it came out.

Never had a BSOD since probably 2001.

Never had one of my two macs crash on me yet although I must say I run very very limited software.

Had Linux crash on me due to dodgey hardware that triggered the OS to fall but we are talking 2003 ish time and since then the one Linux box I ran as a file dump worked perfectly 24/7.

Quality hardware setup correctly not attempting any real customisation past the default OS = for the win.

They are all as bad as each other really, would take windows as my OS of choice most of the time although now that I am stopping gaming I would probably think about running a mac as they just have a sort of warm cuddly feeling to using them.

Linux I just treat as a utilitarian OS and I have never really seen the appeal personally to use it as a main OS, just never seem to get into the whole GUI on the thing.

G-MAN2004 · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:02

Yewen said:
they just have a sort of warm cuddly feeling to using them.

Yewen · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:03

I hope that doesnt become a classic quote.

Probably should have found a better way to describe OSX.

Participant · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:05

iCraig said:
Even when they're switched off they still own PCs? Point well made.

Clearly when both are switched off, i.e. they look prettier as ornaments and that's about it. Sorry, I should have known that asking you to make that link was a step too far

.

iCraig · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:15

Robbie G said:
Clearly when both are switched off, i.e. they look prettier as ornaments and that's about it.

Like I've said, it depends on what you use them for.

There's a reason why designers use Macs over PCs and a reason why average computing users and gamers use PCs over Macs.

G-MAN2004 · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:24

iCraig said:
Like I've said, it depends on what you use them for.

There's a reason why designers use Macs over PCs and a reason why average computing users and gamers use PCs over Macs.

What advantages does a designer have when using a mac?

Magister · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:25

Some other inopportune BSODs:

iCraig · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:34

G-MAN2004 said:
What advantages does a designer have when using a mac?

Up to 16GB of DDR2 RAM. Which is nice when you have huge Photoshop and Quark projects on the go.

OSX is also much better at rendering type.

Admittedly Vista has closed the gap somewhat, but there's still a line between the two when it comes to raw design.

allllec · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:36

ci_newman said:
And my Windows XP hasn't *ever* crashed in the years I've been using it Applications have crashed, but I've never lost the O/S

norm · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:52

Windows XP might not BSOD. But explorer.exe the MAIN component of the operating system will crash during the simplest of file keeping tasks sending it to 100% CPU usage.

For example I'll mass delete a bunch of files from one directory (SHIFT+DEL), then move back up the directory tree, cut & paste a bunch of folders to a new location etc. Eventually it will crash, typically within minutes.

Before anybody says it, it's not a hardware problem, because it's occured on many different systems. It's simply bad coding on Microsoft's part.

allllec · 27 Jun 2007 at 19:57

norm said:
For example I'll mass delete a bunch of files from one directory (SHIFT+DEL), then move back up the directory tree, cut & paste a bunch of folders to a new location etc. Eventually it will crash, typically within minutes.

Huh? Never had a problem like that here :confused:

Azagoth · 27 Jun 2007 at 20:01

norm said:
Windows XP might not BSOD. But explorer.exe the MAIN component of the operating system will crash during the simplest of file keeping tasks sending it to 100% CPU usage.

For example I'll mass delete a bunch of files from one directory (SHIFT+DEL), then move back up the directory tree, cut & paste a bunch of folders to a new location etc. Eventually it will crash, typically within minutes.

Before anybody says it, it's not a hardware problem, because it's occured on many different systems. It's simply bad coding on Microsoft's part.

Never had that problem at all, and I quite regualry cut & paste and move around large scenery files for FS9. Last night for example I moved around at least 5GB in files without a problem and then enjoyed a few hours on Guild Wars afterwards.

norm · 27 Jun 2007 at 20:03

Obviously you aren't working with the same volume of files and directories.

But when I last wanted to copy 5000+ folders to a USB2 disk explorer.exe went to 100% CPU after about 50 folders causing the transfer to slow right down.

I then switched to xcopy.exe from the command line and it transferred the lot without problem.

iCraig · 27 Jun 2007 at 20:06

Urm, 5000+ folders? Doing that via GUI will grind any OS to a halt, no?

norm · 27 Jun 2007 at 20:15

iCraig said:
Urm, 5000+ folders? Doing that via GUI will grind any OS to a halt, no?

I see no reason why it should. All it does is call on some other app like xcopy.exe to transfer the files anyway.

The point is explorer.exe is badly coded. If it were any other company an application which is found crashing to 100% CPU load for no reason would get fixed fairly quickly. But because it's Microsoft the problem goes under the radar, to them a problem that only effects 0.1% of users isn't important.

NickK · 27 Jun 2007 at 22:46

Jet said:
As said that's merely an application crash.

Although I use Mac's almost entirely now I never had any real problems under XP. I don't think I had a BSOD in the 2 or so years I had my last custom PC.

That said I much prefer OS X and won't be going back to Windows unless they really grab me with their next release. In any case I would merely install Windows onto my Mac.

Seconded.

My T42 laptop with XP has been stable as a rock at work. My home PC with XP has had a few lockups related to bad software - usually games or third party drivers (the HP scanjet scanner driver used to blue screen the machine when the scanner entered sleep mode!).

My new MacBook Pro has had a couple of open source application crashes (no different to XP or Kubuntu in that regard).

I do prefer OSX. Myself and a mate (works for MS) sat down and compared Vista and Tiger side by side. The have the same things - just done differently.
A architect from work nailed it - with MS you have to learn how to use the machine, with Apple it follows the working practice more.

edit: forgot to add
My SuSE9.3/linux.org kernel file server (old barton+nf7s) has had up times of over a year! It runs a software RAID5 1TB array (6x200GB), acts as a files server and media streamer. Part due to the UPS, part due to the fact once it was working it gets left with the odd reboot for cleaning.

LordSplodge · 27 Jun 2007 at 23:22

I have a PC at work, my boss has a MacBook and my Graphic Designer has a 24" iMac. Overall my PC (C2D 3GB RAM ATI X1600) is more trouble than the Macs. Sure, it hasn't BSOD'ed running XP SP2 or Vista but Explorer bails out all the while.

Meanwhile the 24" iMac runs Final Studio 2, Aperture, Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium CS3 and has not once crashed. That's applications* and OS even when rendering production video or editing large images,

*Safari on the other hand is an unstable pile of junk!

marc2003 · 27 Jun 2007 at 23:38

lets do a bit of role reversal..... how stable would os x be if it was released to run on any combination of x86 hardware. meanwhile microsoft get to make windows only for hardware they choose......

J1234 · 27 Jun 2007 at 23:51

In the short time I've been using OS X (and loving every moment of it) the only app crash I have had is with messenger for Mac, which is made by Microsoft. It is the only software I can't get to run properly on OS X. Everything else, no problems.

Logsi · 27 Jun 2007 at 23:55

Thats an Application crash not OSX

My mac has only hard locked with iMovie.

Josh