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Plan to write a paper of OSX v Vista v Linux

clevin

clevin

macrumors G3
Original poster
Aug 6, 2006
9,095
1
Planned structure is (pure OS comparison, I will mention hardwares as little as possible)

1. UI
1.1 2D UI
1.1.1 design
1.1.2 usability
1.1.3 animation
1.1.4 customization
1.2 3D UI
1.2.1 implementation
1.2.2 3D UI customization

2. software
2.1 software availability
2.1.1 pre-installed software
2.1.2 3rd party apps
2.2 software installation, usability

3. System stability
3.1 security
3.2 system performance variability through time

4. Peripherals
4.1 availability and compatibility
4.2 ease of setup

5. OS economics
5.1 OS price
5.2 3rd app price
5.3 charge for system maintaining
5.4 system requirements

I have windows Vista, OSX 10.4.9 and Ubuntu 7.04 and several other live CDs. So its not difficult for me to make comparisons,

anything else I should pay attention to?
 
Heres a couple you might consider;
User opinion (maybe, maybe not - the advocates of each can be like rabid dogs sometimes)
System requirements
Total cost of ownership (hardware, os, maintenance, downtime etc)
 
I'd consider giving securiting it's own main point. While it is often directly related to stability, there's a good bit you can expound upon about security for all three OSes.
 
wow, very interesting articles and suggestions, I would prefer to make it as objective as possible, might take some time, but any link and sources are greatly appreciated.
 
clevin said:
4. Peripherals availability and compatibility
Click to expand...

I don't know if you incorporate it elsewhere, but complexity of configuration / setup is important here.

Some discussion of API structure is probably also relevant, I think, somewhere? And perhaps other related developer issues.

Although it could arguably be placed under the system security / performance item, memory, filesystem, and other resource management, are important.
 
Dont forget Unix. Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD to name a few and for stability and preformance i think Solaris gives most systems a run for there money.
 
babyjenniferLB said:
Dont forget Unix. Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD to name a few and for stability and preformance i think Solaris gives most systems a run for there money.
Click to expand...

errr... that would make this into a project beyond my capability, win/OSX/Lin are most used OS for now, so, .....
 
I think you should add some charts to help the reader understand and even glossary for terms. I know it over doing it but you gotta make sure your reader is not getting frustrated with the technical terms on your essay. Also I think from someone who does not know anything from computers(not me) they want to know the essentials, security, easy of use, and compatibility. I think those issues will draw non tech people and the you have the tech end covered.

Just ideas I hope this can help you. Also share the essay when you are done.
 
try to fit a chapter on licensing, DRM and consumer rights. Linux wasn't created to be better than Windows or to become a good product. It was written to avoid licensing restrictions that were on the way of students and researchers.

Fast-forward to 200x and there is a whole consumer electronics industry being lead by cartels of media distribution that are trying to take the "personal" out of "personal computer". Today there are mobile phones, computer, portable media players, etc. that are fitted with mechanisms to restrict the users' ability to do whatever they may need, in fact working in a way that the user is forbidden to do everything that is not expressely permitted. Moreover, the issue of forced hardware upgrades, supported by artificial software restrictions has a clear impact on your TCO analysis.

further reading on www.defectivebydesign.org

(and next time you buy a computer, keep the old one running Linux, you might regret later if you didn't)
 
How many pages is the paper? I foresee quite a bit of typing to get the full picture
 
clevin said:
Planned structure is (pure OS comparison, I will mention hardwares as little as possible)

3.1 security
Click to expand...

You should break security out into it's own topic and subtopics.

For example...

6. Security
6.1 Celebrating 7 years of unrelenting viruses, spyware and trojans on MS Windows!
6.1.1 What me worry?
6.1.1.1 Hey, you weren't seriously thinking of plugging in that DSL connection and surfing the net right now, where you?
6.2 I'm just a hard drive wipe away from getting this baby back to normal.
6.2.2 Saving your memories...on how to edit the system registry and turning off activeX!

and on and on.
 
nice, I wouldn't add anything else.
and certainly don't make it a windows-bashing-paper, as many posters allready suggested :p
 
VanNess said:
You should break security out into it's own topic and subtopics.

For example...

6. Security
6.1 Celebrating 7 years of unrelenting viruses, spyware and trojans on MS Windows!
6.1.1 What me worry?
6.1.1.1 Hey, you weren't seriously thinking of plugging in that DSL connection and surfing the net right now, where you?
6.2 I'm just a hard drive wipe away from getting this baby back to normal.
6.2.2 Saving your memories...on how to edit the system registry and turning off activeX!

and on and on.
Click to expand...

In all honesty: that's a fanboy outline.

Let's work on a bit higher intellectual level and realize that some of the reasons that OS X is having a better time in the networked world is because it has inherited an impressive multi-user network operating system (UNIX) heritage.

My website has plenty of resources on the topics of security. I would be glad to point you in the right direction.
 
i like the idea.

a few questions and notes

1. who's your target audience?
2. what level of paper is this (high school? college? graduate?)
3. remember iLife is not part of OS X
4. just to reiterate, don't turn this into an windows basher and os x fanboyism (i'm not saying you will, but it's not hard)... that means, talk about where windows is superior than os x, aside from market share
5. oh yeah, talk about software compatibility... and compatibiilty with the rest of the world. that is... what format are files usually sent around, and whether they can be processed in the 3 OSs
6. specialty softwares? how do they work on the 3 OSs?
7. how's the speed for the same software on the 3 OSs (assuming similar hardware)
8. you might also want to mention just some about the history of the OSs... brief history

i've recently done a proposal, in which i had some comparision between Mac and PC, and a big part is about the OSs
 
i sure appreciate everyone's input, :D , this is not a term paper, planned for ~10 pages, altho looks like it gonna be double that #, just want to write something and see if can be published somewhere. lol,

i will check out the link provided above,
 
clevin said:
i sure appreciate everyone's input, :D , this is not a term paper, planned for ~10 pages, altho looks like it gonna be double that #, just want to write something and see if can be published somewhere. lol,

i will check out the link provided above,
Click to expand...

then you definitely want to think about what audience you are addressing, because then the content can vary drastically
 
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