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Best Operation System for MBP

What's the best Operation System for a MBP

  • Snow Leopard

    Votes: 11 20.4%

  • Mountain Lion

    Votes: 38 70.4%

  • Windows 7

    Votes: 4 7.4%

  • Windows 8

    Votes: 1 1.9%
  • Total voters
    54
U

UBS28

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 2, 2012
2,893
2,340
I got Mountain Lion installed on my 500 gb SSD and Snow Leopard on my HDD. Eventhough SL is on a HDD, I feel that SL is more responsive than ML on a SSD. SL shuts down alot faster than ML also ( SL shuts down instantly while ML with a SSD takes some time shutting down )

I'm now thinking of installing SL on my SSD. What is the best OS for a MBP?
 
Mountain Lion may have it's faults, but I still consider it the best bet. I don't Bootcamp, have no desire to go hunting for Windows drivers either.

ML Is designed to get the best out of the hardware that Apple use....
 
^^Non sense to the above posters (#2-#3), linux is and will probably be geeky for a long time.


OP, I did not vote, reason, both OS X SL and ML are good.

OS 101.9 will most likely be much better (Hopefully) than ML, yes, I agree ML seems to be a bit slow sometimes, startup and shutdown times are ridiculous, my old Powerbook starts up and down faster than ML on a 2012 Mini.
 
I'm triple booting between Gentoo, ML, and Windows 7.

Every OS has its strengths and weaknesses. I will say I spend more time in OS X than anywhere, though.
 
I like fedora, and yeah the poll is lacking, but all in all my favorite and best OS for the MBP is OSX
 
Macman45 said:
Mountain Lion may have it's faults, but I still consider it the best bet. I don't Bootcamp, have no desire to go hunting for Windows drivers either.

ML Is designed to get the best out of the hardware that Apple use....
Click to expand...

I think OS X is a good OS but it is far from getting the best out of the hardware. OS X/Apple FAILS when it comes to video/graphics. OS X is always behind on video drivers and Open GL support.

I consistently get better graphic benchmark scores in Bootcamp/Windows than I do in OS X because of the poor driver support from Apple.

Not keeping up-to-date with USB, Bluetooth, or Networking drivers is one thing, but video card drivers and Open GL support is very different.

It is the Achilles heel of OS X.

-P
 
I don't understand why you'd buy any Mac computer in the first place if you're not going to run some version of OS X on it.

I'd install Mountain Lion. Snow Leopard lacks features compared to it, and any difference in speed is really more placebo than tangible benefit.
 
Last edited:
Don't get it - your only criterion is how fast the computer shuts down? And yes, ML's shutdown is still bugged.
 
Boot and shutdown with Retina 13" takes literally seconds. Glad im not affected.

Is there a specific hardware configuration that suffers most?
 
justperry said:
^^Non sense to the above posters (#2-#3), linux is and will probably be geeky for a long time.
Click to expand...

Linux and OSX are more alike than you think.
I'm completely happy with ML on my laptop, however it appeared to me that OP was looking for an alternative OS.
Linux has gotten wicked easy to use - only downside is that you cannot pick a copy off the shelves in box stores.

Either way, to each their own. Everyone has a different opinion on what's the "best" OS.
My opinion - grab some live CD's or create a test partition and test a few different flavors out until you find the one you like. Perhaps you my just stick with OSX.
 
I've done them all, SL, Lion, ML, with bootcamps of Windows 7 and Windows 8 and by the far the best combo is ML-W7. I definitely liked SL and was disappointed by Lion, but the 'tick-tock' cycle that Apple has going now with the Lion-Mountain Lion (and Leopard-Snow Leopard) releases really sets ML up there above Snow Leopard. Stability and speed in Mountain Lion is outstanding, and the features that were originally in Lion and refined in continued in Mountain Lion just set it over the top.
 
Obviously the best OS for any computer will be the newest of the one it was designed for (In this case Mountain Lion). Why you would include Windows 7/8 is beyond me even though I strongly believe that Windows 7 is the best OS currently available to purchase.
 
Albuca said:
Linux and OSX are more alike than you think.
I'm completely happy with ML on my laptop, however it appeared to me that OP was looking for an alternative OS.
Linux has gotten wicked easy to use - only downside is that you cannot pick a copy off the shelves in box stores.

Either way, to each their own. Everyone has a different opinion on what's the "best" OS.
My opinion - grab some live CD's or create a test partition and test a few different flavors out until you find the one you like. Perhaps you my just stick with OSX.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am aware they share a lot, but from what I know Linux used to be have a fairly steep learning curve, like installing apps for instance.
I installed an old distro on my 2012 Mini a while ago, want a newer one but sadly I am on a limited internet connection, capped, so I can't download one or more of the newer ones.
What I don't like about Linux is that the UI is too much Windows alike, don't know if this is still the case with the newer distro's but I certainly don't like many of the older ones.

OS X works out of the box, by far the most stable and usable OS (IMO)

Btw, I can get lots of illegal software here if I want to, but they aren't that cheap anymore, I don't want to pay $5-6 for a free OS (Linux) while I can buy an internet package for the same price and download it.
It seems little ($5-6) but here in Asia that's quite a lot, lots of people don't make much more than a dollar a day!
 
A Hebrew said:
Obviously the best OS for any computer will be the newest of the one it was designed for (In this case Mountain Lion). Why you would include Windows 7/8 is beyond me even though I strongly believe that Windows 7 is the best OS currently available to purchase.
Click to expand...

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction? I know a lot of people who would say that most computers that come with Windows 8 (the 'newest of the one it was designed for') would be improved by 'downgrading' to Windows 7. :)

Personally? I like Snow Leopard. A couple of my older machines are tri-boot 10.6.8, Ubuntu 12.10 and Windows 7. It's more there for maximum compatibility, though. There are a few binaries I still have need of that won't run on Lion and up and there's no reason not to keep an old machine around. As a daily driver, Mountain Lion wins on the basis of two features: iMessage and full gesture support (including fullscreen apps). I'm a diehard Magic Trackpad user, and since upgrading I find it harder and harder to go back, especially on my old pre-Unibody MPB which lacks the multitouch trackpad.

I have Windows on all my Intel Macs, but aside from gaming I'm rarely tempted to boot it up. The loss in battery life alone is a major downside, but I just find OS X more enjoyable to work with.
 
Asuriyan said:
Isn't that a bit of a contradiction? I know a lot of people who would say that most computers that come with Windows 8 (the 'newest of the one it was designed for') would be improved by 'downgrading' to Windows 7. :)
Click to expand...
Technically it is a contradiction of what I said but in all honesty Windows 8 is so drastically different than Windows 7 that one might consider them completely different OSes. (Especially in comparison to Windows XP to Vista, SL to Lion, Lion to ML etc.)
 
A Hebrew said:
Obviously the best OS for any computer will be the newest of the one it was designed for (In this case Mountain Lion). Why you would include Windows 7/8 is beyond me even though I strongly believe that Windows 7 is the best OS currently available to purchase.
Click to expand...
I would argue that it is the OS that gives you the most battery time, while let you do whatever work that needs done. And since SL is faster, has longer battery time and runs most of the same applications, SL is obviously better.
 
Krazy Bill said:
Maybe we just like the build quality? :confused: I forgive your short-sightedness.
Click to expand...

Ooh, what would you do if you didn't forgive it? :rolleyes:

I love macs but if I were a Windows or Linux user, the thought of spending such a huge premium to get me some aluminium unibody would never cross my mind. I guess if you like blowing all that extra cash on Macs which you then run Windows on, then all the more power to you.
 
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