Executive Summary: The benefits of Unix cannot make up for the slow performance on a G3.
Test Macs: G3 (blue and white) 400Mhz w/384M, iMac (original) 233Mhz w/96M
There once was a time when I fantasized about having a command line on a Mac. I'd have MacDOS or Nshell installed on my macs to simulate those "other" operating systems. I was a Mac User. All were inferior to the Mac. Then I had the "Crash." I don't remember the day, but I do remember having multiple applications open (including Word) and having a good half hour of effort evaporate when the Finder died and took everything with it.
Linux and OpenBSD have since moved to the pinnacle of my OS tree, with the Mac demoted to near the bottom. I still use Macs because I need to support them. Stability is more important than looks. Now the Mac has it, but at what cost?
It took three days of attempts to get MacOS X to install on the blue G3. The final solution was to boot off the 9.1 CD, reformat all drives to HFS+, install 9.1, and install X on a different drive. Do NOT try to reformat the MacOSX drive with the BSD file system (this is allowed during the install) as you will not be able to access this drive if it fails. It required a similar install to get X working on the iMac. This resulted in a loss (I have backups) of my pre-existing Mac install of 9.1 with all of my applications. Too much to sacrifice? Not yet.
After the boot sequence (which took almost 90 seconds) I have to fill out a fairly detailed amount of information about myself and UTC. This gets sent to Apple automatically, although there seems to be no registration number with OSX. Following this the "Software Update" service comes up and tells me I need to update my OS X. (Argh!) 15 minutes later and a reboot (plus another 90 second boot) and OS X is up and running. After configuring the screen, getting rid of the annoying bouncing motion of the Doc, and setting my screensaver (w/password) I bring up Terminal. A bash shell. Rejoice. Telnet, ssh, ftp, ncftp, traceroute, netstat, route, ifconfig, top, and a host of Unix commands respond perfectly. gcc? cc? cpp? Nope. If you want developer stuff, you have to load the next CD and install. Command line network speed. YES! Downloading from Slug using ncftp achieves speeds unheard of in MacOS 9.
On to the GUI. How can I put this...The new Finder SUCKS. To begin with the keyboard mappings (Apple N for new folder etc) don't match up with OS 9 and earlier. No Duplicate w/command click. The right mouse button works, but the context menu is sorely lacking. The NextStep interface needs to be ripped out and replaced with the old Finder style. Slow. It feels like the first time I installed Win95 on a 486 w/16M of RAM. Maybe I need a Dual G4 w/500Mb of RAM.
Multiprocessing. I start a mpeg of Weird Al singing about pentiums and try surfing the Web with IE 5.1 beta. All of a sudden Al is a rapper with a stutter. Kill the video and try a MP3. More Rap music from Kansas (cccarryyy on my wayyyyword sunnn..) while I look at www.apple.com.
Networking. The bash stuff is quick, but what about downloading using IE. It is also fast. How bout connecting to an appletalk server? Using the Go menu, I "connect to server" and wait as it tries to build a browse list. I have already enabled appletalk (which is off by default) under the Network Panel. Im still waiting 3 minutes later...So I just type in quark's dns name. It works using TCP/IP with a respectable copy speed. BootP, DHCP, and static are the choices for IP assignment. During the install it tries BootP and DHCP (good).
Security. From the desktop? Forget it. You might have a put an account with a password on your Mac, but hit the reboot key, insert your 9.1 CD, and hold down the "C". Viola, access to all the drives. Macs have never been known for their desktop security, and one shouldn't expect it. From the outside. Yes. Nmap reveals nothing open. You have to open up the Sharing Panel to allow outside access to your Mac. Did I mention that SSH is included at the command line?
Compatibility. Here's where Steve had to keep everyone happy. Fire up a Old App (like Fetch 3.03) and it starts up the System 9.1 that you installed earlier. Again a 90 second wait, but Fetch does start and it isnt in a "Virtual Mac" window, but instead it appears to be an OS X app. Quit Fetch and Classic environment stays loaded in memory. Open up Netscape Navigator and it launches w/o delay. Classic only sucks up 60Mb of RAM or so, easily worth it for backward compatibility. So I kill classic and try opening a text file. X gets confused and instead of using its built in editor, it fires up SimpleText (with the 90 second delay of classic.) ARGH.
Final Word. OS X isn't there yet. Its stable, but it isn't fast and it definiately isn't easy (unless you do a complete reinstall). Make the Finder the FINDER! My suggestion, if you need a true multitasking environment use YellowDog Linux with MOL (mac on linux). If your install of 8.x or 9.x is working for you, stick with it. If this is Apple's Win95, I can't wait until OSX gets to Windows 2000's level of evolution. By then my 5 GHz Mac Cube should be able to push it.