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Jumpin' Jack Flash · Level 25: Twin Snakes **Posts:** 3332 **Timestamp:** Sat May 03, 08 7:03 PM

Many people are hypothesizing the rise of the Mac (and by extension OS X) in the next 10 to 20 years, and possibly the eradication of Windows. And if that did happen, I'm guessing many people here would be affected greatly.

So, here's my question. What do you want in a future OS, and what do you see in the future of software? Will computers continually keep getting more expensive? Will Microsoft die? Will Apple die?

~Discuss.
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Biotic · Level 33: Guitar Hero **Posts:** 7792 **Timestamp:** Sat May 03, 08 7:21 PM

If Apple does rise and Microsoft dies, then the government will get involved, to destroy the possibility of a monopoly.
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Kennisiou · Level 20: Metal Mario **Posts:** 1263 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 10:11 AM

Maikeru, they did nothing in the 90's to stop Microsoft's emerging monopoly (took care of itself, eventually), and they're doing nothing to stop Google's emerging status as a monopoly of search engines and more. Why would they stop Apple?
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Biotic · Level 33: Guitar Hero **Posts:** 7792 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 1:25 PM

Kennisiou · Level 20: Metal Mario **Posts:** 1263 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 1:39 PM

Hence emerging. People rarely use Yahoo for search anymore, but for its social networking functions, and ask has seen less use since Google responds to question searches now, too. (at least, as well as ask does)
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The Man · Level 24: Sore Fingers **Posts:** 2650 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 2:11 PM

Mac is annoying as hell. I wouldn't buy their products just because of their commercials. And usually windows isn't the problem, instead it is a person's messed up PC.
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I used to use search.com exlusively...
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Jumpin' Jack Flash · Level 25: Twin Snakes **Posts:** 3332 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 3:52 PM

BigNig · Level 43: Monk **Posts:** 20023 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 4:38 PM

Ah, a thread I can get into.

First of all, Microsoft only has a monopoly with Windows because way before, everyone was using CP/M, which then evolved into the various flavors of DOS, and when Microsoft made MS-DOS, everyone lieked it, so of course, when the first DOS-based Windows came out with full compatibility for 8-bit and 16-bit programs, everyone was cool with it (technically Windows 1.0, which looked like DOS on acid, but Windows didn't truly catch on until 3.0/3.1 in May of 1990). As Windows evolved, everyone just went along with it, because Windows supported the most hardware, and the amount of applications you could find was next to infinite. However, the hardware support was a double-edged sword - while you could install Windows on any i386-based PC (now referred to as the x86 architecture that we all know and love), driver issues could arise, and system stability as a result, suffered (lol, DLL hell in the 9x series). Windows did take an interesting turn when the 9x/DOS-based system was superseded by the NT line (which is superior, but still sucky), which brought the magic of NTFS into everyone's homes. Also, XP and especially Vista, are system resource hogs, Vista often taking up 400-500MB of your RAM while idle. And I needn't mention Windows Me *shivers*.

Apple was the first company to come out with a GUI-based operating system for the masses, yes. But the problem with the old System was stability...with no memory protection, if an application screwed up, no matter what, you would have to reboot the computer (a notable problem with Windows 9x as well, which often caused BSODs), not to mention the sudden dropping of support for Motorola 68k-based processors starting with System 8.0 due to the switch to the PowerPC architecture. System 9 wasn't that notable in my opinion-it was just System 8 on steroids. OS X 10.0/10.1...bad. Unstable. Stability really wasn't delivered until 10.2 (affectionately known as Jaguar). The only reasons OS X is as stable as it is today is because with only 4% of the market share, there's no real viruses targeted at the OS X platform, it's based off of UNIX, an OS notable for its long uptimes and stability, and, since OS X is (normally, except if you're using OSX86) locked to a specific set of hardware, driver issues are next to nonexistent, leading to fast boot times, excellent stability, and potential for long uptimes.

Linux...what an interesting story there. What started out as a UNIX clone ended up become the most popular non-Microsoft/Apple operating system out there, and currently powers about 65% of the internet. I have high hopes for Linux, as there is quite the dedicated user base, who continues to develop drivers and whatnot for the OS.

My problem with this generation of OSes is mainly size and requirements to run. A default Vista install (Home Premium, mind you) takes up 10-15 GB and requires a video card with at least 128MB of dedicated VRAM in order to get Aero running (or a compatible 64MB VRAM card with also 1GB of RAM or moar), and really, Aero isn't all that great to me...it's pretty, but Vista also brought a host of compatibility issues, the shitty UAC, and overall, it feels a lot slower than XP to me. My problems with Leopard are mainly the uppity user base (lol, lok at me, i so cool bcuz i haev a mac which iz so much bettar then ur shity windoze pc lol/unwarranted self-importance), the lack of certain programs that I liek to use, and although it's much smaller than Vista, still requires 6-8GB for a basic install (Tiger took up anywhere from 3-5GB), and OS X isn't as stable as the Apple fanboys would like to think-there's still some kinks that could be worked out.

The future of the operating system looks quite interesting. Microsoft is touting Windows 7 (based off of NT nomenclature, XP was NT5, Vista is NT6) as one of the best things ever with its MinWin kernel that weighs in at about 25MB, compared to Vista's 4GB kernel, and XP's 500MB kernel. And Microsoft better deliver with WinFS. OS X still has room for improvement as well, and it will be interesting to see what Apple does with that. My hopes are that certain requirements are lessened (mainly video card and RAM, although I doubt it) so that you won't have to go out and buy new hardware just to run a new OS. I'm also very intrigued with Apple, as you know, I'm an OSX86 user, running Leopard on an AMD Dell system, and it will be interesting to see if Jobs will evar go back to Mac clones (I doubt it, though), although people will just continue to use OSX86 if he never does (which he probably won't). And the claim that OS X will become the most used and Windows will be eradicated is BS in my opinion, because with the downfall of Windows, (for example) AMD would basically be out of business, because Apple doesn't want to waste time rewriting the OS X kernel for the AMD processor set (although with OSX86, the work's basically already been done for them), and then the only computer-related companies that would be making a significant profit would be Intel, NVIDIA, ATI, Creative Labs, Apple, etc., etc. Not to mention, most developers would have to spend a ton of money buying new developer's kits and whatnot for the Apple platform, which most companies would not want to do, but would do for the sake of money. So I don't see Windows/Microsoft going bye-bye any time soon.

And as for hardware, I'm interested to see if a full transition to the 64-bit architecture will be happening any time soon, considering we've already hit the 32-bit architecture's physical memory limit of 4GB. And I'm also interested in seeing the evolution of the file system and boot record, because the MBR can only address partitions/volumes up to 2TB, and GUID partitions are probably going to supersede the MBR, and file systems, since they will have to be rewritten to address larger and larger amounts of hard drive space, although that probably won't happen in my lifetime, considering NTFS has a volume limit of 16TB, HFS+ with a limit of 16EB, and the ext3 file system with a limit of 32TB.

(Sorry aboot the long answer, I just love operating systems...the topic is just so interesting to me and I have a lot to say.)
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Jumpin' Jack Flash · Level 25: Twin Snakes **Posts:** 3332 **Timestamp:** Sun May 04, 08 5:23 PM