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New Advice requested: Apple or Linux?
Hello all!

I need a bit of advice here.

My old laptop recently died of old age (I think the power supply gave out - it shorts the brick whenever I plug it in). Given that I paid $600 for it three years ago, I'd have to say that it gave me all it could.

After my experience with Vista on my main home machine, I am sure that I will not have any more of this crap in my house. I've experienced all of it: from blue screens (never seen with XP) to calling Microgoddamnsoft to reactivate my license because I replaced a sound card. No drivers, UAC is fascist bullshit, old programs break left and right...

In any case, I need a new laptop. I can get some generic Intel for half the price of Apple. However, Apple has a reputation of "just working", and is beautiful. My old experience with Linux on Intel was that I usually can get by, but it's not trouble free. And with laptops, it used to be worse - not sure how it's now. I just want me and my family to be able to use it, without me turning into full-time sysadmin.

I use the laptop mostly for browsing, web-based e-mail, opening documents that people send me. Kids use it for Flash games. I want to be able to dump my pictures thorough the laptop to the main machine (still Vista, unfortunately). The laptop also needs to speak to basically everything out there - I take it with me when I travel, and who knows what will be there.

So, what should I do? Is it Apple or Linux? And if Lunix, which laptop and which distro?

Thanks in advance.


------

179. I will not outsource core functions.
--
[link|http://omega.med.yale.edu/~pcy5/misc/overlord2.htm|.]

New I'd try Linux first if you want to save money.
Mac laptops are good, but expensive and I don't know if they'll be trouble-free for you if you need to "speak to basically everything out there".

You can get inexpensive Mac laptops if you're willing to use something that is a few years old. Check out eBay and [link|http://www.macofalltrades.com/Apple_Notebooks_s/5.htm|Mac of all trades]. My wife has a 667 MHz Titanium PowerBook G4. It runs OS X pretty well, but it has over 1 GB of RAM and a faster-than-stock hard disk. It runs MacOffice98, but can't run a modern virtualization tool like [link|http://www.parallels.com/|Parallels].

I've had good luck with [link|http://www.mepis.org/mirrors|MEPIS] on this T41 laptop. But I've only played with it - I haven't used it for real work. I haven't tried the latest version yet. I didn't have as much luck with previous versions of Ubuntu, but YMMV.

The good think about the latest MacBooks is that they're on Intel processors so there are lots of virtualization choices.

If money's no object, get a MacBook or MacBook Pro. If compatibility is the primary concern, get a PC laptop and Linux and run to run Windows as a client. (You can do the same thing with the MacBook, too.) Parallels needs an Intel processor, so running it on a G4 PowerBook isn't an option.

HTH a bit. Good luck!

Cheers,
Scott.
New Last few Ubuntu's are pretty solid.
But GNOME likes a hefty processor.

If you're after something secondhand, but not too old, a recent Dell Latitude should be great with Ubuntu. I have a work-supplied D620 that's about 2 years old and the only thing Ubuntu doesn't understand is the modem. And for all I know, Gutsy Gibbon can see it anyway (I haven't upgraded yet). The D620 has WiFi, Bluetooth, IR and some variants have a GSM modem in them, too. The display is 1440x900, the HDD is pretty roomy (mine's a 100Gb) and the processor supports hyperthreading.

GNOME in Ubuntu can Just Work, but you may need to do some hand-holding to migrate people to how GNOME works with files. My father took some training, but then he was upgrading from Windows 95, so he had further to go than most. If your family is coming from XP/Vista, then a lot will already make sense. Stuff like USB-connected camera picture importing is similar to how Windows does it, for instance.

Wade.


Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
 
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please



-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne.

· my ·
· [link|http://staticsan.livejournal.com/|blog] ·
· [link|http://yceran.org/|website] ·

New I had a similar dilemma a couple of month ago.
I chose a basic MacBook with 2 GB memory. I've had incident of weirdness but for the most part it does indeed "just work". For example it recognized my printer w/o requiring any CDs with device drivers and such.

I sprung for the new Leopard operating system which pissed me off a bit because there was no discount for recent laptop purchasers. I bought a USB attached Western Digital Passport drive for backups. It recognized it and immediately gave you the option to make it a backup drive, etc. You do have to tolerate idiotic names like Time Machine for this function. Apple makes up weirdo names for all devices as well.

Other than higher initial expense, I'm a happy camper!

One reason I didn't go the Linux route is that you have to pay the Microsoft tax for Vista which you would then blow away. You have to get some questionable minor brand of laptop to avoid that Microsoft tax.
Alex

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law. -- Sophocles (496? - 406 BCE)
New One word:
Flash.

Get a Mac if Flash is a requirement. Flash is a PITA sometimes on Linux. And if you're opening stuff people are sending you, it will most often Just Work on a Mac, not so on Linux. Yes, you might be able to get it to work by performing extensive configuration on Linux, but it's a lot of work.

Caveat: I'm basing this on Ubuntu's Feisty; I haven't done much with Gutsy yet. Although with Gutsy I'm hitting a nasty "corrupt the libs" bug everytime I use apt-get. Not good.

Edit: why Gutsy isn't ready yet (for me): [link|https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/133786|https://bugs.launchp...buntu/+bug/133786]

I have one remaining Linux machine at home, and three Macs. The Linux machine will more than likely be replaced with a MacPro soon so I can do video editing easily.

I love my MacBook Pro, although I've had a few issues with the hard drive failing. Dunno if it's bad luck, putting it away quickly before it's actually sleeping, or heat problems.

The only reason IMO to use Linux on a desktop any longer is if you're doing heavy software development, and even that is changing: I have a full Python/Postgres dev environment on my Mac. The Mac is also the best for cross-platform testing, since it can run Linux and Windows in a Parallels instance, while it's difficult to run OS X in VMWare.

I've had no problems on the road with the MacBook Pro, and it's been able to connect to every wireless network I've tried.

As far as sysadminning goes, I've discovered that I do *much* less with the Macs than when I had Linux for them to use. That said, there's still some to be done. Also, the Mac personal productivity apps are wonderful, particularly if you're doing video editing.

On cost: make sure you compare similar setups. When I was looking for a desktop-like laptop, the MacBook Pro was price-comparable to equivalent machines (bluetooth, built-in camera, etc) from other vendors. I don't know how it is for a MacBook.

My experiences only, YMMV, etc.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Expand Edited by admin Nov. 11, 2007, 11:54:07 PM EST
New Interesting issue with Flash on Mac
My boss has a monster highend 8 core many GB (you got the point) Mac.

And Flash SUCKS!

We were about to cancel a flashed based project due to his poor experience. The flash app would take forever to load and execute.

And then, he tried it in Parallels/IE. And it was FAST!

New I've never had a problem with it.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New I don't know that you would
It is very difficult to peg a speed issue as a problem, since it does produce the desired results. And to some people, a 10 second delay is perfectly reasonable for this type of interaction. Just not us.

Have you setup any multi-tabbed, multi-paned interfaces that slide up and down when selected?
New Just my experience as a user
Flash is much smoother and more performant on my Macs than on my Linux machines. Dunno about Windows, because I don't run it. I haven't had any Flash apps that were ridiculously slow, and in fact running something like a 3D Shockwave app was just fine too.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New More than one word.
Flash.

Get a Mac if Flash is a requirement. Flash is a PITA sometimes on Linux. And if you're opening stuff people are sending you, it will most often Just Work on a Mac, not so on Linux. Yes, you might be able to get it to work by performing extensive configuration on Linux, but it's a lot of work.
I have my Lenovo C2D T61, 4GB of memory, running x86_64/AMD64 Debian.

Firefox is 64bit, Flash (32bit) is running perfectly on it. And now that Alsa stuff is sorted out, it runs fine.
I've had no problems on the road with the MacBook Pro, and it's been able to connect to every wireless network I've tried.
I am refuting the insinuation that Linux has problems with WiFi. 2.6.22 and Network Manager, udev, hal... etc. All works. Haven't had a lick of any problems.

Yeah, I know, NOW it works, but hey what to say now.

As far as sysadminning goes, I've discovered that I do *much* less with the Macs than when I had Linux for them to use. That said, there's still some to be done. Also, the Mac personal productivity apps are wonderful, particularly if you're doing video editing.
Things are fine with update-manager. I've seen very little problems on Ubuntu stuff. And Since I am playing with laptop drives on my Lenovo, Gutsy seems to just work. Including Accelerations, HDAPS (motion sensing for hard-drive parking etc, allowing to thwap you MacBook and change desktops), connectivity just works. This machine was purchased in August.

Everything works fine, 2.2GHz, 4GB of memory, lots of stuff... the only two things it doesn't have, the camera and the DRM stuff.
On cost: make sure you compare similar setups. When I was looking for a desktop-like laptop, the MacBook Pro was price-comparable to equivalent machines (bluetooth, built-in camera, etc) from other vendors. I don't know how it is for a MacBook.
Well, comparable MacBook Pro and T61 ... T61 $1K less, less the camera and the DRM stuff.
My experiences only, YMMV, etc.
Same here.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
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New And you're a professional sysadmin.
No offense, Greg, but you tend to overlook problems with Linux because to you it's no big deal to dig in and fix it. :-)

Flash... what about Shockwave? You can't run it on Linux unless you want to mess around with WINE. Ditto Authorware. Linux has made great strides, but it's still not all the way there. And again, if you're doing video editing, nothing approaches a Mac. There's also nothing resembling the WAV and MIDI applications on Linux either. You can run some stuff in VMWare, but the performance suffers drastically for that class of application -- I know, because I used to do it.

Looking at T61s on NewEgg... I don't see any with 17" screens, like my MBP -- so I don't consider them to be similar machines. Comparing similar models (newegg's prices) I see that the T61 is a few hundred dollars more than the equivalent MacBook, with a slightly larger screen. I don't think the difference in cost is nearly what people seem to think it is.

I am refuting the insinuation that Linux has problems with WiFi
What insinuation? Another Scott thought Macs might have problems in that area. I haven't had any. Where was Linux mentioned?

Like I said, Linux is great for developers and sysadmins. If you just want a family machine, my experience says Mac is better.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New I wasn't thinking WiFi in particular.
I thought "speak to basically everything out there" was more about connecting to systems and exchanging information. It reminded me of my brief adventures with Vista trying to connect to my Win2k machines. Of course that was Winders to Winders so that doesn't really apply... :-/

So, I don't think Linux has any particular problems with WiFi (war drivers use it, after all). But exchanging information with other systems might be an issue (for relative newbies like me, anyway).

I hope that clears up what I was trying to insinuate from my position of limited knowledge. ;-)

Cheers,
Scott.
New Bought mine straight from
Lenovo, custom built.

15.4", no 17" available.

1680x1050 resolution at 15.4". Good enough for me.

And yes, I guess I do marginalize those kinds of problems.

And, yeah, I just wanted to make sure people are understanding that WiFi has made HUGE progress on Linux. And Yeah, I did read into your statement.

Used NewEgg Memory vs Lenovo, saved $700 ADDITIONALLY.

YMMV... as always.

--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
PGP key: 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05
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New Mac memory is the same way.
I bought an extra stick from NewEgg as well, and if (when?) I get a MacPro, I'll do the same thing with the memory and the hard drives.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Windows?
I read what you said, but I have an HP laptop with Vista Home Premium and 1 GB
it was inexpensive, all drivers, etc are fine
IE 7 crashes a lot but there's always FireFox

A
Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy
Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET
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New Also possible to get an XP system from Dell if you use...
the business menus fro ordering. Or so I've been told. That also eliminates crapware that pollutes the hard drive.
Alex

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law. -- Sophocles (496? - 406 BCE)
New Posting this from a brand-new MacBook (new thread)
Created as new thread #296382 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=296382|Posting this from a brand-new MacBook]

------

179. I will not outsource core functions.
--
[link|http://omega.med.yale.edu/~pcy5/misc/overlord2.htm|.]

     Advice requested: Apple or Linux? - (Arkadiy) - (16)
         I'd try Linux first if you want to save money. - (Another Scott)
         Last few Ubuntu's are pretty solid. - (static)
         I had a similar dilemma a couple of month ago. - (a6l6e6x)
         One word: - (admin) - (9)
             Interesting issue with Flash on Mac - (crazy) - (3)
                 I've never had a problem with it. -NT - (admin) - (2)
                     I don't know that you would - (crazy) - (1)
                         Just my experience as a user - (admin)
             More than one word. - (folkert) - (4)
                 And you're a professional sysadmin. - (admin) - (3)
                     I wasn't thinking WiFi in particular. - (Another Scott)
                     Bought mine straight from - (folkert) - (1)
                         Mac memory is the same way. - (admin)
         Windows? - (andread) - (1)
             Also possible to get an XP system from Dell if you use... - (a6l6e6x)
         Posting this from a brand-new MacBook (new thread) - (Arkadiy)

Here we have a game that combines the charm of a Pentagon briefing with the excitement of double-entry bookkeeping. I don't get it.
80 ms