I just booted OS 9 for the first time in like a year... first time I have used 9 in like a year... I never use classic.
Man, it sure was fast on the iBook:
I started using the finder and stuff and I fell in love (once again)
I love the finder (although the windows all start out too small by default.. OSX does the same thing)
And I hate how 9 aligns the icons. It doesn't truncate names, so even when Sort by Name is selected they are all over the window unless in list mode.
Then the ability to double click and hold the mouse on a HD and start spring loading everything so there is only one window to close at the end when you are done is magical and apple should put that into OSX.
The help system in 8 is superb. You click the ? next to the thing u need help with. A search dialog pops up. You find wut u need help with and click OK. Then a little help window appears at the bottom left and tells u to click the right arrow to continue. You click it and it tells u what to do and circles in red (like a marker) where to click on the screen. Just amazing.
9's portability is also simply amazing. Just move the system folder anywhere u want and it will boot to just about any Mac. (boots to my 600 g3 ibook and my 733 G4 powermac without even thinking) try that on Linux or Windows. (OSX can do this too, but its not as easily moved)
Also in 9 it always tells u what files... programs... and folders are open, by turning them gray. OSX should be able to do this (but make them grayscale to be more aquafied)
So I love the finder.... but as I started using it I started remembering why I stopped using 9
First annoyance. You select one window from a program and all of its windows come to the front... incredibly annoying.
Then of course the horrible RAM support. Its almost impossible to run Photoshop with only 128 on it. In X its just ultra slow, no errors though.
Then the shitty Ethernet vs Airport. In X it automatically switches to ethernet when u plug it in... and if done right (setting your ip address manually to be the same on both the airport and ethernet) the effects are instantanous in X. In 9 I have to go the TCP/IP conrol panel and switch it over.
There is also no easy way to launch programs in 9. Either you clutter up the desktop or use that stupid launcher program or add them to the apple menu. None are as fast as the Dock and F10 Launch Studio.
9 also has pretty bad printer support. In X with the combo of built in, official third party, and CUPS. There is just about no printer that you can't print to.
The Chooser!!! OMG wut a Piece of Shit. I hate that thing.
Sherlock. I also don't like sherlock. Jags search is good... and panther's is better.
This isn't OS9's fault, but it shows most of the ugly hidden files from OSX.
Software Update in OS 9 sucks major balls. I have 9.0.1 and it couldn't even tell that I needed to upgrade to 9.2.2 so I'm grabbing those manually.
So thats about it.... OS 9 is fun to play around with. But all of my apps are for X so I can't get much done in it.