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From: "A. Forest Godfrey" <ag5c+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.sys.acorn.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.next.advocacy,comp.sys.powerpc.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.machten,comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.user-friendly,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: The PC Mac Holy war
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 01:07:04 -0400
Organization: Freshman, Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
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Distribution: inet
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Well, since this seems to be the thread that will never die, I
thought that I'd correct some of the earlier posts on what machine is
more reliable - Mac or PC. I am a student cluster manager here at CMU
and therefore, I have access to all the requests for computer
maintainance in public clusters on the campus. I wrote a script to go
through them (since they are electronic) and categorize them into our
different platforms of machines - Mac, PC, Unix, and Printers (also
Unknown/Misc other periferal hardware like scanners). Guess what I
found? Exactly what I thought I'd find. There are percentage wise,
about as many Mac and IBM service requests. Our Unix workstations are
the most reliable, while the printers are the least (though to be fair,
they do take a real beating).
On a different subject, it is my OPINION that MacOS is a better OS
than Win95, however, as with other things, I try not to force my beliefs
on others. My favorite OS is Unix (yeah, I'm a CS major...). In fact,
this is coming from a Mac running Unix right now at the same time as
MacOS (MachTen). There is no mathematical proof that either OS is
better than the other. Why not stop the debate and let people use
whatever they are most productive on?
Back to the harware reliablility, don't just take my work for it,
here are the raw stats: (Jargon: a "maint" is a software form we fill
out to request maintainance.) All the percentages are rounded to the
nearest whole #.
Hope people find this all enlightening (or at least ignore it if
they aren't interested - please don't send flames, I'll just delete
them). Sorry for not trimming the To: line but I have a final
tomorrow...
-- Forest
These are all hardware maintainance requests. I must admit that Macs
comprise the vast majority of all software maints.
399 maint requests (this semester)
Breakdown by Machine:
192 Mac
42 PC
37 Printers
68 Unix
60 Unknown
Total #'s of machines of each type - we have mostly Macs
222 Mac (About evenly split between PowerMacs and Mac IIci's)
33 PC (Dell Pentiums and a few DEC 486 PC's)
126 Unix (Half DECstation 3100/5000's and the rest are either HP 712's
or SPARC
5's)
12 Printers (Mostly HP 4si's or 5si's. A few Apple LaserWriters)
% of maints by type:
Unknown: 15%
Unix: 17%
Printer: 9%
PC: 10%
Mac: 48%
% of total machines of each type:
393 machines
Mac: 56%
Unix: 32%
PC: 8%
Printers: 3%
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Forest Godfrey ag5c+@andrew.cmu.edu|
| Penguins in '96! fgodfrey@nyx.cs.du.edu|
| Go Badgers! Internet: Use it. Don't abuse it! |
| Vote Democrat! Your share of the national debt>$17,000 |
| Save the planet! We don't have a backup copy |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+