I can't get on with it. Everything I was used to on SL (which was mega) is now done a different way on Lion.

Oh, and my parallels won't work now either.

Technically all the Mac OSX products are Updates..

10.0 Cheetah

10.1 Puma

10.2 Jaguar

10.3 Panther

10.4 Tiger

10.5 Leopard

10.6 Snow Leopard

10.7 Lion

so for the past 10 years (that's right Cheetah was released on March 24th 2001) Apple have only "updated" their software.

You'd hope that they would get it right at least once in all that time.

Hmmmm, I don't know if I should bother or not with it then, finally the iMac has been working perfectly ......be a shame for it to go tits up.

Getting on well with it myself,

The front end changes are quiet subtle, a lot of changes have been made at the backend.

1) Rosetta apps are no longer supported

2) The OS is now true 64bit, unlike SL, so you need at least a C2D equipped mac to install it.

3) Samba is gone, and been replace by Apples implementation due to the license change by the Samba developers. The apple implementation seems to be quicker than the old one.

4) Java is now no longer included and will download from Sun when you first try to access a java web app.

There are a lot of changes to the graphics interface, with some pretty cool animations as you open/close applications, and quiet a few other enhancements that are not that apparent. For example I can not play Full HD video on my 13" MBP, something that was all jerky before the update.

Parallels may have issues, but VMWare fusion works perfectly as it was updated with Lion support before it was released.

Getting on well with it myself,

The front end changes are quiet subtle, a lot of changes have been made at the backend.

1) Rosetta apps are no longer supported

2) The OS is now true 64bit, unlike SL, so you need at least a C2D equipped mac to install it.

3) Samba is gone, and been replace by Apples implementation due to the license change by the Samba developers. The apple implementation seems to be quicker than the old one.

4) Java is now no longer included and will download from Sun when you first try to access a java web app.

There are a lot of changes to the graphics interface, with some pretty cool animations as you open/close applications, and quiet a few other enhancements that are not that apparent. For example I can not play Full HD video on my 13" MBP, something that was all jerky before the update.

Parallels may have issues, but VMWare fusion works perfectly as it was updated with Lion support before it was released.

No offence Mannyo - so this is not that big a OS change. a bit of fluff, move to 64 bit and lost Java because they fell out with Sun Microsystems...

In all fairness (and I do like Mac more than Windows as an OS) Ubuntu has more changes in their releases (nope, not upgrades - releases).. and this is on a 6 month basis and it's free...

Ahh well..

So Windows XP - Vista - 7

They are all new OS's are they? Or are they upgrades too?

Windows XP was built on the NT kernel from Windows NT4, taking over much of the code from Windows 2000 Professional - New OS = No

Windows Vista was brand new, 6 million lines of new code, new boot process different TCP/IP stacks and true 64 bit support - New OS = Yes

Window 7 Developed from Windows Vista with a new virtualised registry, a new Kernel, sharing it with Windows 2008 R2 - New OS = No, but a radical revision

Each of those where designed with a purpose though, to complement in the vast majority of cases the server OS's they would be used with in business, you could argue that Lion does not have anything "really" new in it, and is produced to extract money from the faithful.

On the current migration project I am leading up in Scotland, even the Unix guys think there is some cool stuff with AD, 2008 R2 and Windows 7 in the mix. 5,000 Windows 7 machines and 150 Mac's, the Macs have been the most expensive to integrate per capita, because the only real way of managing them in the enterprise is through Quest Management Extensions, and there is no Campus licensing or education pricing for Quest.

Apple do their bit for education, with lower prices for equipment etc, but I have just done an SCCM implementation where excluding my costs, the University got the whole System Centre suite, and Management licenses for under £500 through Microsoft and a Campus agreement, if they where commercial it would have cost them in excess of £200k.

Wandering off topic now I am a bit reluctant to go for Lion, just because I have had a hell of a game with the iMac which is finally working as it should, all of my accounts are on a VMware fusion machine that's running Sage, and I just don't want to run the risk of buggering it all up again. I think Snow Leopard is pretty good as an OS, but am not sure if I really need the extra gestures and the other iPadesque features, maybe once it's proven and I come back with a multi touchpad jobbie from the states in August I will give it a blast.

What 10.7 does have is much enhanced security, since their application memory randomisation is done properly unlike in previous versions.

While Linux can do this, I don't think it's in all distributions as standard and IIRC windows only does this sort of thing to a point at the moment.

Obviously I'm more than willing to be corrected on that.

Regardless of the other two, the fact that this has been done is a significant security update.

As for losing proper samba, I'm not too happy about that and booting java out is a pain.

I may well seriously consider putting windows or linux on the mac if it comes to it.

Java is fine, its just not included out of the box anymore, in the same way you need to download it with Windows.

I access a number of Windows shares from my mac, and the Apple implementation of Samba seems to be perfectly usable.

Lion can read and write directly connected NTFS disks now out of the box as Paragon NTFS is included as standard with Lion.