Comment by mitsche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mitsche | Hacker News Reader

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Yes.

I use OS X for browsing the web, web-development, graphic design, video editing, and writing.

I use Windows 7 for music production and playing video games. At some point I want to start dabbling in game development, in which case I'll probably go with Windows for that, too.

I ssh into various Linux servers privately and at work. In my spare I sometimes play around with Linux distros on my desktop just to learn about the current state of affairs. I usually can't see any advantages in it over OS X other than the fact that's it's free software and that it runs on cheap hardware. I keep being curious though.

I don't use any virtual machines because I dislike the sluggishness and I don't really need them.

Sometimes I wish I could get by with only one OS without feeling crippled in some respect. My dream setup would probably be an OSS system that's great with multimedia stuff and has about a 99% adoption so hardware would be supported really well.

But that thought depresses me because it reminds me of the state reality is in, so I try not to have it.

> I use Windows 7 for music production

I am fascinated by this claim. The last time I looked at Windows for music production was a long time ago, but back then CoreAudio beat the pants off of ASIO for real-time work. Is that not still the case?

What software do you use? Two packages that I use heavily, Logic and DP7 are mac-only.

I use Reaper by Cockos. I make rock music. I have previously used Cubase and Sonar.

Regarding ASIO vs. CoreAudio performance: http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm

There are a few freeware plug-ins I use that are Windows only. If I could afford to buy Altiverb 7 right now, which is OS X only, I'd probably switch to OS X (at least till Altiverb came out for Windows).

I use Reaper on Win7 as well. It is available on OSX though.

Mac is a better platform for audio but the difference is getting smaller.

It's true that they are a lot more freeware (vst) plugins on Windows. Great one like http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com for example.

How is Mac a better plattform for audio? This is not a rhetorical question. I keep hearing this, and some say it's because of CoreAudio. But so far I haven't been able to find a thorough explanation that's not based on biased assumptions.

The Variety Of Sound stuff is what I'm missing on OS X. I use those a lot.

Many musicians say this because Windows systems can, for a variety of reasons from hardware drivers (certain Firewire chipsets and motherboards) to bloatware, become very glitchy and finicky when it comes to low-latency recording. It's very difficult to predict if new hardware will work or not and it can be very time intensive to troubleshoot when the problems arise. Unless you buy from a music PC specialist, you're unlikely to encounter sympathy from support desks.

Alternatively, every Mac comes with Garageband and is built from the ground up for reliable recording - if you buy a system and you hear glitching in recordings (which I've never heard of), you can take it to the Apple store and have a technician troubleshoot the problem.

I don't think most PCs face this problem (although prevalent hardware like HDMI ports is often problematic for smooth audio recording), but musicians tend to recommend Macs because the certainty that it will work out of the box has a lot of value.

Okay, I agree.

Although I think this has a lot more weight when you talk exclusively about laptops, with which I indeed have had so many problems in the past that I would recommend a MacBook to any fellow musician asking me for advice, especially if he is going to go on tour with it.

The two DAWs I've assembled myself in the last 12 years were both super stable and performed really well. I don't think I would have gained anything by using a Mac.

In fact I'm on a machine that I recently built which dual boots into Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. Maybe I will benchmark Reaper in both of them and come to a surprising conclusion. If I do, I'll post it on Hacker News.

Out of curiosity, since you sound not like a fanboy of any particular os and just want to use one: What keeps you using osx over windows for browsing the web, webdev and graphic design? Are there any special advantages or is it just software which is not available for win?

Graphic design: not many. Just little things, like the great desktop zoom, the nifty screenshot shortcuts, simple access to special characters. Nothing that Windows couldn't do without some modifications, just maybe not as nicely. Also, I spend most of my time in OS X anyway, and I don't want to boot into Windows just for quickly creating or editing a file in Illustrator or Photoshop.

Browsing the web: font rendering. I don't like Windows' aggressive hinting and the one dimensional anti-aliasing. Some non-standard fonts I find not only ugly, but unreadable on Windows.

Webdev: Unix underpinnings, Rails. Text rendering, again. And I feel like I'm a lot faster at switching apps and searching for stuff on OS X. But that's probably just habits I've built over time.

Overall, OS X gets in my way the least. That's why I would choose it if I had to choose just one OS. But I don't, so …

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