Student that uses OSX,GNU Linux, and MS Windows(only when forced too) opinion on OSs.

I bought my first Mac because of OS X. I had prior experience with Linux and knew the stability a UNIX derived OS provides. I was still being forced to use Windows for several reasons including Direct X games(still am) and QuickTime or WiMP streams.

I knew my 600 MHz iBook's 8MB ATI graphics card was weak, but I also have a PC for games. Being an undergraduate student I can order 10.2 for $69, but I not sure it's even worth that for the following reasons.
{
Quartz Extreme: My less than a year old Mac doesn't meet the 16MB VRAM requirement.

Ichat: Um Fire, Proteus, or even AOL's client let me IM my computer illiterate AOL using family members and friends.

Mail: I bought Office X(academic priced) and would most likely continue using Entourage.

Sherlock 3: Looks like they ripped off Watson, which I already bought a license for it.
}
I’m not a “Switcher”, but do prefer using OS X, PC’s still have better Linux support: easier to find RPM’s. I do have Yellow Dog Linux installed though. I’m still being forced to use Windows most recently for the GRE PowerPrep review software and a small number of websites don’t work right with IE or Mozilla on OS X. Windows Media Player X doesn’t support all the codecs (try anything on techtv.com).

I have no intention of using windows as my primary OS, heck I never even upgraded to XP, but I can't get around not using Windows. I had to check my Java programs for a Computer Science class last semester on my PC before turning them in. The alignment of stuff never worked out right. Even so I loved using Project Builder to write them first even if I had to make slight modifications later. I almost couldn't help laughing when the console output came up in a dos prompt box on other people's wintel laptops. They had to insert pauses to verify their output. Project builder slides down a separate pane with color output and a Scroll Bar(LOL). We moved to Graphical apps and applets so that didn't matter long.

The Physics Dept at my school has a dual 800Mhz G4 tower, and I can't wait to see MATLAB on it. It's going to be the control for an Appleseed cluster soon.

Enough of me ranting, I believe OS X is the best operating system, but Apple needs to not piss people off with pricing. Maybe they just need a long pipeline, inefficient but high clock speed processor a la P4 to grab the uneducated consumer's eye.