Comment Some Details (Score 1) 152
I'm one of the guys quoted in the Boston Globe article. Let me go on the record to say that I use both Linux and Mac OS X extensively. For my work, P4 clusters running Linux are still the best bet for overall number crunching performance. However, if you can take advantage of AltiVec, G4 systems are extremely competitive, sometime up to 3-4x faster than higher clock speed P4s. But it's not always practical to invoke AltiVec (some codes cannot be vectorized, while others need double precision which AltiVec does not support). So for now, the P4/Linux solution is best overall for general computational performance.
On the desktop, as a workstation, OS X is unequaled. Having apps like MS Office and Adobe Photoshop running side-by-side with my Unix tools and X11 apps is a very powerful and productive combination. No other Unix has done this before, and it makes OS X a unique success.
I have used Linux (and numerous other Unixes) on the desktop, but I always found myself gritting my teeth and returning to a Mac (running OS 7-9) to get a lot of my work done. And that's where OS X saves the day. I can do everything on one machine. I'd venture to say that I can do more on the one OS X machine than I did on all the others combined. It's just a super-productive OS for science/engineering research. One of the best parts is that OS X gets along with many other OSes, whether they are another flavor of Unix, Windows, or Linux. It's versatile.
In terms of maturity, OS X is on par with other Unixes I have used (the BSD and NeXT heritage pay off here). While scientists and engineers have been using Linux longer than OS X, there's no doubt OS X feels more finished and certainly more advanced. The more I use Linux, the more raw edges I find. There's less of that in OS X, and the rate at which OS X matures is amazing. Two years ago it was nothing, yet today, it is a powerful and usable workstation OS .
About the only thing I find lacking in OS X is hardware accelerated OpenGL support for X11 apps. But I hear that is on the way. I am also disappointed in the slow performance of OS X on older hardware (where Linux excels). But, running OS X on a dual processor 1GHz (and up) G4 is super fast and damn near perfect. 10.2 makes the experience even better.
On the desktop, as a workstation, OS X is unequaled. Having apps like MS Office and Adobe Photoshop running side-by-side with my Unix tools and X11 apps is a very powerful and productive combination. No other Unix has done this before, and it makes OS X a unique success.
I have used Linux (and numerous other Unixes) on the desktop, but I always found myself gritting my teeth and returning to a Mac (running OS 7-9) to get a lot of my work done. And that's where OS X saves the day. I can do everything on one machine. I'd venture to say that I can do more on the one OS X machine than I did on all the others combined. It's just a super-productive OS for science/engineering research. One of the best parts is that OS X gets along with many other OSes, whether they are another flavor of Unix, Windows, or Linux. It's versatile.
In terms of maturity, OS X is on par with other Unixes I have used (the BSD and NeXT heritage pay off here). While scientists and engineers have been using Linux longer than OS X, there's no doubt OS X feels more finished and certainly more advanced. The more I use Linux, the more raw edges I find. There's less of that in OS X, and the rate at which OS X matures is amazing. Two years ago it was nothing, yet today, it is a powerful and usable workstation OS
About the only thing I find lacking in OS X is hardware accelerated OpenGL support for X11 apps. But I hear that is on the way. I am also disappointed in the slow performance of OS X on older hardware (where Linux excels). But, running OS X on a dual processor 1GHz (and up) G4 is super fast and damn near perfect. 10.2 makes the experience even better.
