When Is There a Good Time to "Switch" to Apple? 323
AllNines asks: "With all the hype of MacWorld and the compelling keynote given by Steve Jobs about the upcoming Tiger and Spotlight, I am thinking about 'switching' (Linux user since '97) but I am not sure the time is right. It seems like the PowerBooks are getting very long in the tooth and the iPods are due for a major rev. When is the right time to jump on the Apple ship? Am I going to get burned by a sluggish overpriced laptop that is updated next month?"
Mac Buyer's Guide (Score:5, Informative)
Good question (Score:5, Informative)
The register is no good as they make all sorts of wild claims which almost never come true.
Usually Apple releases new hard- and software on two regular occasions: Macworld (just past, this january) and the Mac developer conference, in the middle of the year. Buying a new Mac just before then is usually not the best of ideas.
The only way to do this, if you're seriously interested in wasting a lot of time, is to spend time on the Appleinsider forums, noting occasional leaks before Apple C and D's them, and keeping up with current industry trends.
That means, at present: The chances of an Apple G5 Powerbook being released soon are very slim, as far as I can see. The chances that Apple will first release upgraded G4 Powerbooks with the new Motorola G4 and "Freescale" processors is much higher, since those would take the G4 above 1,5GHz.
If you have the patience, wait until the developers conference is over in the middle of the year. I'm sure Apple will have announced something by then.
Good reasons. (Score:5, Informative)
The OS is incredibly easy to configure compared to the various competing KDE/Gnome distros (which is exactly the problem there). And if you need the terminal and wish to do stuff by hand, it's there, and you're free to do what you like with the system's innnards as it's OSS and well documented.
The OS, apps and hardware are tightly integrated, which means that problems like hardware compatibility don't exist.
The software and hardware are both of high quality, which really means something if you've used Dell or no name brands.
It goes way byond things like Eye Candy, which says to me that you've never actually used the OS for a period of time yourself.
Linux and OSX are both good (Score:5, Informative)
I always ran Linux on my laptops and with a bit of care an x86 laptop for Linux is a great tool but to get the best compatiblity I couldn't really go for the budget machines and ended up spending £1500 last time on a Toshiba. It was dead after a year. The surface finish (silver paint) rubbed off and scratched, the case cracked and chipped, the battery stopped holding any charge (just after the guarantee ran out) and the backlight died. The Mac was £500 less, and with OS X, the OS it was designed for, it is more than powerful enough.
Learning to use OS X has taken a bit of time but I have made a decision that my next desktop machine will also be a Mac because I love the UNIX base, the interface, the fact I can use X11 apps too. I also like having the menu bar at the top and also like the dock. Some others in the Mac community laugh at me because I do my development using vi in an xterm but what they hey, it works for me! At least I have syntax colouring turned on
The hardware is well made, it has already outlasted my last three x86 laptops and shows no signs of failing. It doesn't run hot, the battery life is excellent, the performance is also good. Having played with the new iMac G5 I can't say I notice it being blazingly faster than my 933Mhz G4 so I think the desire to jump into a G5 laptop is misplaced, the G4 is still a pretty good chip and excellent for mobile applications. Sticking a G5 in is going to increase the heat output, shorten battery life and probably not really increase performance all that much. Just get a lot of RAM for the Mac, I have 640MB in mine and that makes it a very smooth experience.
Would I run Linux on my Mac? Possibly, but to be honest I like OS X, I like the fact that most open source software is also available for the Mac. Sometimes I choose to use the Mac native app, other times I use open source. I like NeoOffice but have MS Office X too. When NeoOffice becomes fully aqua (widgets and all) then I will use it all the time. I certainly won't be buying another copy of MS Office, I'll just keep the one I have for compatiblity but do new docs in NeoOffice. Firefox is better than Safari. I tried using Safari but the slow page rendering annoyed me so I switched back. I have changed from Thunderbird to Apple Mail which I like a lot.
All in all, I think there is a lot to be said for the Mac. Does it mean I don't like Linux? No, I still have a Linux desktop (at least until my next machine) and I will keep Linux on my servers and continue to use open source apps on my Mac.
Virtual Desktop Managers for OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to butt in, but thought I'd throw in a couple cents:
There are a few virtual desktop managers for OS X (a few of which are free):
Re:been there, done that, got the tshirt (Score:4, Informative)
If by interface you mean skins, there are ways to futz with it, but they caused stability issues for me, so I don't advise them. Google for OS X and "haxies". As for other ways to change the interface, there are numerous programs that replace the dock, change finder behaviors, etc, that many swear by. I've actually grown to love the simplicity, so I'm not using anything anymore, but I'm sure that there are others that will give recommendations.
Sorry, I can't help you on the network issue.
You can net-boot the Macs and run them diskless. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Example: wireless card on my laptop kind of works, but causes a kernel panic in FC3, suspend-to-disk kinda-sorta works after a lot of fiddling, nautilus CD burning kind of works, but seems to burn a lot of coasters on my brand-new burner and there's no way to change the burn-speed, YAST2 is kinda nice, but slow and clunky.
I spend a lot of time reporting and dealing with annoying bugs in distros. I like all the polish I see in MacOSX, the nice configuration tools. I'd like to just be able to use my computer.
I use Linux because the x86 alternative (Windows) is *so* awful. I mean, I'm a free software developer and even I can see good reasons for switching.
Dropping the Client HD to take advantage of RAID (Score:5, Informative)
Re:been there, done that, got the tshirt (Score:5, Informative)
I think someone's trying to dig up the FUD they read in 1998 and pass it off as informed opinion...let's take a look at some configuration settings for the network.
I'm afraid the lameness filter stopped me from posting a larger chunk of that file, but the DTD is given on the next line and you can indeed download the schema from Apple. Or perhaps we want to observe which nameservers we're using?
...and so on. Looks a little, well, plain-text (or at worst XML) to me. Not binary. Perhaps you're thinking of NetInfo, which has got very little to do with network settings but is instead a directory service for name information. That's stored in Berkely DB format; yes it's binary but it's hardly the world's least-understood format.
Works for me^{TM} on a production network involving OS X, Linux, NeXT, OpenBSD and Slowlaris. One of the OS X servers is serving a filesystem as is the Solaris box. No problems on the Mac side; the Sun's rpc.rquotad is a bit broken so remote quotaing on the Sun machine isn't good. I expect the problem you're observing is related to using a Linux machine as an NFS server. Linux' support for NFS is not very good and never has been very good; if you're creating network mounts on a Linux machine that need to be read on anything else then you should be using Samba. Linux NFS just isn't good enough.
I work with X11 all the time (on Macs and Solaris mainly), and other admins I work with are Linux/Solaris admins; I showed them some X11 action and we all agreed it looked no different from the rendering under XFree86 on Linux. In fact, that's unsurprising, as it's the same XFree86 code as many Linux distributions; the difference is that because Darwin has IOKit and Linux hasn't, you don't need to write an XF86Config-4 on OS X. Nor, indeed, on Darwin/x86.
A note to fellow moderators: marking something as 'insightful' just because it regurgitates known FUD is wrong. Try at least a small attempt to verify the truth in the statements made before deciding whether they contain any insight. A further note, the parent post did not contain any insight, just old and tired dogma.
switcher!!!! (Score:2, Informative)
ifconfig warning (Score:5, Informative)
Because Mac OS X uses the netinfo database for a lot of config data, doing things like ifconfig by hand (even modifying the
Use system preferences and the net info manager wherever possible. There are command line variants for most of them, but they aren't well documented.
I'm not saying don't use ifconfig - just be sure you know what you're doing.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
In 2000, I bought a Powerbook Pismo (g3/firewire) with the intention of running Linux. It runs Linux marviously, and there isn't an application (other than Macromedia flash) which it cannot handle fine -- even with the (now) older 400mhz processor. I extensively use the airport adapter , so the only cable I use with it is the power adapter, and I keep the machine in my living room.
Now, I'm afraid when I decide to replace that laptop, I won't be able to use the new machine in the way I used the old one. ACPI under Linux is awful, so I can't buy x86 -- and the Airport Extreme cards don't work under Linux.
What is a geek to do? Run OSX, kill the Dock, run an X11 server, and compile your own apps (or use something like fink). It isn't pretty, but its the friendliest Unix laptop -- even if it isn't Linux. Nobody says that OSX can't be "just another Unix" -- it just hides it by default.
Re:Wait for Rev B (Score:2, Informative)
Warranty still applied, but have it working perfectly out of the box is nicer IMHO.
Re:Just go for it....soon (Score:2, Informative)
Just get enough RAM!!
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
Don't try to optimize. Market-based explanation! (Score:3, Informative)
This is a case where the marketplace actually sort of does operate, and is reflected in the street prices of the gear you buy. If you wait for the hot new product and buy it immediately, you'll find that you will likely a) pay full list price, b) experience unpredictable but significant and annoying shipping delays--including changes in promised ship dates, and c) suffer from various teething pains in the first run of the product.
Those teething pains can vary from serious (high failure rates and product recalls) to cosmetic (Apple Cube "cracks") to trivial but still annoying (on a G5 Tower purchased immediately when first available, when the CD ejects it sounds cheap and clunky and you have the feeling that the door-opening mechanism may fail--although it hasn't yet. They made some kind of improvement and later models are much smoother and confidence-inspiring... that sort of thing...)
Meanwhile, in the runup to the new product introduction everyone is trying to clear out old inventory, and you can get a fire-sale price and all sorts of deals with "free" extra RAM and bundled printers and so forth.
When you buy in is a personal matter, but the actual price you pay and the deal you get tend to reflect the marketplace judgement of the current value of the gear.
If you're waiting, that means you don't have enough money to just buy a new computer every year or so. Personally, I get at least four years out every computer. Four years from now, your computer is going to be four years old. Depending on how clever you are about jumping in just after the leap in technology, it may feel like it is effectively three-and-a-half years old or four-and-a-half years old. It doesn't really matter.
Besides, over the last ten years an amazing thing has happened: performance has been levelling off AND hardware has started catching up to software. These days, you can spend a thousand bucks and get "enough." Whatever enough means. I use a 1.8 GHz G5 at work. My home machine is a 400 MHz G4. Is there a difference in speed? Sure. Is my home machine "fast enough?" Yes.
Not a bleeding-edger? Then the time is now. (Score:2, Informative)
I'm going to answer the questions that were actually asked.
1. The right time is when ever you are ready to jump. Before jumping, though, I'd suggest that you do some research on which one of Apple's currently shipping system meets your needs.
2. If you are the type that MUST have the latest and greatest all the time then the answer is yes. Apple has an unofficial policy that they should introduce something new every 90 days. Now that you know that time schedule, you will only get burned if you allow yourself to be.
Now to address your previous comment: It seems like the Power Books are getting very long in the tooth and the Ipods are due for a major rev.
Since it was the first Apple product to receive the, now ubiquitous, minimalist industrial redesign, I suppose the Powerbook is getting long in the tooth. I'm certain Apple is aware of this and is working on something.
As for the iPods, their current hardware designs, and software, are fairly new and they work as advertised. What more do you really need from a portable digital music player that is so incredibly easy to use?
various strategies... (Score:4, Informative)
I use an 800 MHz TiBook at home that I got as a refurb about a month after the faster ones came out. I got it because it would still boot into OS9 for some legacy stuff, and had a graphics card that works with an old game that I was addicted to.
I use a 1 GHz TiBook at work that I got a while later, and I honestly don't notice any real difference between the two machines' performance (and I use both daily).
I also have some sort of high end WinXP "workstation" at work that I use for running FEM software (and really not much else). It's only a few months old, so it really screams, but because I trust windows so little, I don't use it for much else. It solves transient models really fast though, and the most significant thing about it is that it's really quiet, despite the speed. I've heard older machines that sound like a jet landing in your office.
also consider the OS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My advice? Wait... (Score:2, Informative)
I agree with this totally. I've been on Macs since 1993... and I've only had three of them.
I buy "second revisions," as Mark says, and they run for years. The only glitch is that I can't always play the newest games once my Mac is a year old, but everything else runs fine.
Re:Just switched - very impressed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:been there, done that, got the tshirt (Score:3, Informative)
you consider it stable when "every once and a while AQUA" crashes? isn't that like arguing that windows is stable but it's the explorer that crashes and as such it's not a biggie?
Humm, Once and awhile means monthly not weekly like windows. And aqua doesnt take down the OS when it crashs, just aquadock. I havnt seen a bouncing ball or complete crash since 10.1.
Most crash I've seen are games exiting back to normal desktop, doesnt happen often, but its also the same crash type on windows.
I find running WoW in window mode easier now, so i can run chat/webbrowser/IM without issues, Uptime for weeks now.
And for explorer on windows, theres a registery tweak to have explorer shell and explorer browsers to run different instances, so a explorer browser wont restart your gui. That has made windows more stable on a day to day basis, and I wish M$ would make it standard.
So, yes, OSX the OS is rock solid, the GUI can crash, but normally when exiting a game, but only once a month, so yes, thats very stable.
KDE and Gnome crash more, but then i use IceWM and Windowmaker because they are reallly stable.
But nice troll, trying to make it sound like I ssh in daily to reset processes, funny troll.
Re:Just go for it....soon (Score:3, Informative)
Re:been there, done that, got the tshirt (Score:3, Informative)
if I find that a Linux, NetBSD or FreeBSD machine takes some 5 minutes to mount an NFS share on an OS X machine (with portmap running on all nodes) then I think that is reasonably good evidence that there's something wrong with the OS X implementation.
You are mistaken. Those symptoms are evidence that you do not have dns set up properly. A long delay followed by a successful mount suggests that one or both of the systems is timing out on name service queries. Those symtoms are consistent with missing 'A' records, missing 'PTR' records or both.
As for configuration, on any of my BSD or Linux boxes, all I need is a single line in my
You are correct that it requires more than adding a line to
1. Add a line to
2. Send a hup signal to mountd (killall -1 mountd) Or reboot.
How is that harder than BSD or linux? It is identical to BSDs. I admit that I'm guessing about the need to inform mountd to reload configurations on linux since I have not used it in 5 years.
To mount a remote volume manually you can use "connect to server" in the finder, or use mount from the command line. (This seems identical or easier than Linux depending on your approach).
To make volumes mount and unmount automatically, add a line to
The automount daemon adds a dynamic mount point for every fstab entry containing the 'net' option (this is equivalent to the 'mounts' domain in netinfo).
After restarting the automount daemon, or rebooting, when you refer to
Having administered dozens of Unices both commercial and free, I find that the various ways to get Macos X to work as an NFS client or server is either consistent with other unices, or nicer. Your sweeping claims that Macos X is broken merely reveal your ignorance of basic unix administration.
Don't get me wrong, client side NFS could be improved on Macos X. It handles manual mounts and automount(8) mounts flawlessly out of the box. My only complaint is that the port of amd (which comes bundled with the os for use by experts) is a bit sketchy when using complex map rules. I would prefer to use amd but ended up reverting to automount(8) about a year ago. I believe that Apple will eventually migrate from automount(8) to amd, but it is not ready for wide use yet.
Re:Just go for it....soon (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Tried a Mac (Score:2, Informative)
and fink. I don't really pay for any software
Re:Just switched - very impressed (Score:3, Informative)
FYI, those are actually directories. The finder just makes it appear as a single file. To look inside control-click on the app and select "Show Package Contents".