Advantages of OS X
Posted on January 29, 2003
Yes, there are a lot of problems with OS X, primarily with performance and the user interface, but OS X also has many positive features. In the spirit of fairness (since the tone of this report is somewhat negative), let's look at some of those advantages.
The power of UNIX
OS X is built on an open-source, UNIX-based (a modified BSD UNIX) foundation named Darwin. What this means to the rest of us is that the system is far more stable than OS 9. UNIX has been around for decades, and is the platform of choice for many Web servers and other work-horses where stability is paramount. Darwin also provides advanced networking capabilities.
Pre-emptive multi-tasking
You can run applications in the background without major impact on the fore-running application and vice versa. Naturally, the more memory you have, the better the system will be able to handle these multiple tasks.
Memory protection
Each application is provided its own memory space, which doesn't encroach on the memory space of any other application or the system. If an application crashes, it won't bring the entire system down. This is a much welcome change from OS 9.
Automatic virtual memory
The system calculates the amount of memory each application requires and allocates extra memory as required, without user intervention. OS X uses a UNIX method of virtual memory that is apparently much more efficient than OS 9's. You can't turn off virtual memory in OS X, like you could in OS 9. Again, having lots of real RAM will improve performance, but at least now you'll never see that "not enough memory" message so frequent in OS 9.
Symmetric multi-processing
This feature allows applications, including the Finder, to take advantage of the second processor on dual-processor models, improving overall performance. Applications have to be specifically designed to do this – older applications will not use the second processor.
Quartz Extreme
Quartz, OS X's system-wide graphics engine "uses the Portable Document Format (PDF) as the basis of its imaging model. Quartz delivers crisp graphics, anti-aliased fonts, and blends 2D, 3D and QuickTime content together with transparency and drop shadows." (1) Basically, "the desktop just becomes a 3D scene with everything a textured polygon." (2)
Quartz will utilize a supported graphics card for all the on-screen calculations (thanks to OpenGL, a 3D rendering engine), freeing up the main processor for other tasks.
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