Getting Crazy, Help me decide Options

[sampoo]

Ok guys,

Be prepared for a long story

Lately i posted a lot of questions on several forums and i still don't know what to do.
Let me explain,
The PC in my studio needs replacement and at first i was considering buying a mac g4.
The main reason why i thought about switching from pc to the mac was that i had/have a lot of problems, my current pc is very instable and i'm tired of reinstalling the system to find out it fails again. I made up my mind and decided to buy a mac but when i checked if al needed software was available i found out that Aksys (for the Akai samplers) and the software for my Mackie UAD-1 isn't written for OSX. Since i would like to use Logic Platinum and Spark XL 2.8 i realy need to run OSX and no earlyer version like OS 9.x. ...... Bomber! After a bit of research i found out that updates will be available soon and i can use everything i want on the mac.

I posted many questions on this and several other forums about MAC vs. PC. (yes, i started a real MAC vs. PC war) I had many reply's of people who say that PC is better, ..MAC is better or both are fine. When i cal some local music shops most of them advise me a PC because they perform better they say, ... and they also say that when running Windows XP al problems are solved and it will run stable. Since i have an older PC running Win98 in my studio i don't know if they are right about this. I'm a sysadmin myself and i do know that i have a lot of work taking care of problems on W2k/XP running Microsoft applications ( i actualy think xp is not so great in a office/work enviromant). I realy don't know if this is any diffrent in a music enviroment so i only can take there word for it.

At the end of the story, ....... i still don't know what to do!
Should i choose a mac or pc? will xp run stable on a new PC or do i have the same problems after i spend a lot of money on new hardware? wil OSX run smooth? will OSX be supported in the future bij audio hardware and software manufactures? As far as i can see now everybody is taking a long time to write new software/drivers for OSX! Will OSX opens a new world and will mac become more populair for the music bussines? If i choose to buy a mac will the G4 be good or will it be better with the new CPU's apple is working on?

As you can see i have many questions witch makes it very difficult to choose between platforms.
If i new for shure that WinXP would never chrash i would choose PC but i just don't have that much faith in it. However other people do and thau confuse me.

Any advise to help me make up my mind is welcome

Thanks in advance

Alex

[dixiechicken]

As Syntetik said I think you can make your decision rather easy, if you're fed up with your old Win98
system, ( win98 is the worst piece of shit I have ever seen on a computer ) and your experience as
a sysadmin tells you it's a lot of work with PC:s, compared to Macs.
( I'm a sysadmin too, 10 years now, mixed environment close to 300 computers in all
my experience matches yours exactly )

Well then do the switch, you wont regret it. Go for Mac OS X & take your time learning to get
around it. ( I's Linux - FreeBSD distro at the foundations ) For comforts sake & house-keeping its
good to know a few linux commands.

Mac OS X is very stable compared to Windows XP, but "stergz" is correct in asserting that a windows box mainly - Win2K XP 2003 - can be made very stable if configured carefully for the proper hardware. ( NT4, W2k, XP, 2003? are notorious for beeing picky on hardware )
Stergz has also some good points about keeping things as simple as possible on the boxes, be they
Mac or PC:s

Remeber that it is one thing that Apple excels at, thats the interface, every version of Mac OS from
6.0.3 to 9.2. ( the ones I've run myself ) have only been refinements.
( under the hood lots of legacy code was changed to make the trasitition to Mac OS X possible. )

I'm guessing we will see a similar evolvement in Mac OS X, interface.
You're fed up with crashing PC:s, you're ready for a change - go for Mac & Mac OS X you wont regret it.

Dont forget to follow "stergz" advice the "KISS"-principle too - and good luck:
Dixiechicken!

PS. I case you wonder:
(K)-eep (I)-t (S)-imple (S)-tupid
D.S