Building a Graphics Workstation: Operating System
June 18, 2008
Deciding which operating system (OS) to use is complex. The factors to consider are:
- 32 bit operating system or 64 bit
- Windows, OSX or Linux
32 bit OS can use up to 4 GB of RAM. If you work with large files, use several applications at the same time and Photoshop has to frequently use the scratch disc, then you might think about getting more then 4 GB of RAM. If you think you will need more then 4 GBof RAM, then you will need 64 bit OS.
I am not familiar with Mac OS, and although many people are happy with it and recommend it for graphical work, I am not sure if I want to spend time learning how to efficiently use completely different OS. I am little bit more familiar with Linux and there will be a separate section on using Linux for photography. In the following section I will provide some observations on different Windows OS choices.
For a 32 OS you have 2 theoretical options: Windows XP and Windows Vista. Win XP has mature driver base and most applications work well with it. Windows Vista does not add anything extremely useful in my opinion, so practically for 32 bit OS the option is Windows XP. Remember that Windows XP will be more difficult to get after June 30, 2008.
In 64 bit OS you can choose among Win XP 64 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. Situation with 64 bit drivers appears to be more complex and it is quite difficult to ascertain if there are 64 bit drivers available for all your devices prior to installation. One can check on manufacturers web sites and most likely it will take you few hours to do so. But you might still miss some chip e.g. on your motherboard you have no idea existed but it requires 64 bit driver... On the positive side it now appears that the availability of drivers for Windows Vista 64 bit is already better in this regard compared to Windows XP 64 bit and situation should further improve with time.
So at the end the choices were either 32 bit Windows XP or 64 bit Windows Vista. Dual booting in this situation will allow controlled transition to 64 bit OS.