Well, if you don’t ask, you don’t get….
But why I hear you cry (those of you who aren’t converts anyway) ? Well, I’ve been a windows user for some years now (although a lot less than most), having started my web development career on SunOS and Solaris. Since then Windows has grown and stuff has happened. Apple have brought out OSX and the Linux community has moved on leaps and bounds.
Currently I have Windows XP on my laptop and it does me fine (for the moment) but to be honest I am getting fed up with “Windows Rot” to the point where I have must have reinstalled Windows onto a clean disk over ten times in five years. Now, I’m not your average user - I try to keep things as tidy as possible, yet within a couple of months, the rot sets in.
So, upgrade to Vista I hear you cry. Well, no, never in a million years. I managed to get hold of a copy which I used for a couple of weeks and then promptly un-installed when I heard about the DRM “functionality” that Microsoft have included in it. If you even consider this practice to be a good thing, I really think you need to have a deep think about what you are letting happen. As far as I am concerned, the only person who should be telling my computer what to do, is me. Just Me. No-one else. Especially Microsoft.
So, this leaves me with Linux or Apple. I’ve taken a good look at Ubuntu of recent, as it’s really my only alternative considering I already have PC hardware (a HP ZD8000 laptop). Ubuntu (and Linux) promises the world in terms of stability, security and speed, but what I have found in practice to be a very different story. Now, Ubuntu (I can’t really comment on other distros - suggestions welcome) installs really nicely, it’s a really clean interface but is let down by silly things - mainly to do with hardware. Now, my laptops nothing out of the ordinary, but installing Ubuntu leaves me a wireless network card that requires wires, a video driver that works without any 3d and a mouse that randomly stops after around half an hour requiring a reboot to fix. For me, this is a killer. I’m sure I could fix this with some random config file tweaks and endless surfing of forums (as everything in Linux seems to be) but to be honest, I want stuff to just work and not take all my time just to keep stable. Another thing is software. I use a library of software that works on all three OS’s (Windows, OSX and Linux), but there is some software that I would find hard to live without and Linux doesn’t support: namely Photoshop (can’t stand Gimp) and iTunes to name two.
Which leads me onto OSX. Currently this platform is way ahead in my eyes in terms of ability and support. I can run all the software I want on it with no problems, and I can also even run my windows software on it via parallels. I get the stability and security of Unix via the FreeBSD underpinnings, but I also benefit from the intuitive clean UI’s that Apple are famous for. For me this is the perfect system.
Almost.
Remember, I mentioned I had an HP ZD8000?
Yup, around a year ago this cost me over a thousand pounds, I’m not really in the mood to spend the same again just to let me loose on OSX, which is why I am still a Windows user. There is no way I can justify spending out a grand for another OS, let alone being able to afford it. I often wonder what would happen if Apple were to open OSX to the masses, distributing it shrink-wrapped to everyone - regardless of the fact that they might not be using Apple hardware. Sure, in a couple of years when my current laptop dies a death I will inevitably replace it with a Mac, but for now I’m stuck in Windows with no way out along with potentially thousands of others. Which leads me to my original question…
Does anyone want to give me a Mac?
Long ago few could realistically imagine the future history of laptops that was to come.
I’ve got an old (no, really old) powerbook 500, but it’s pretty much capped out at OS 8, and only runs on AC power. Batteries were expensive in their day, now they’re upwards of 250 IIRC.
Good luck!!
Why should we buy you a Mac? A Mac speaks for itself. If you don’t want to constantly fidle with Linux, then go with the Mac. And I use the latest version of Ubuntu too. I have no problems with it, but then again I got my computer with Linux pre-installed. I found it through Linspire’s links to get a computer with Linspire pre-installed. And if you want support for things new to the PC world like wireless, just go with the Mac. You can already run Mac OS X, Linux, and even Windows if you want to some how, To get a computer that runs Linux well you are going to spend as much moeny as you are getting a Mac. One tip - get as much RAM as your comuter will take especially if you are goin to be running any Adobe applications - they are not universal binaries yet and will be very slow. More RAM will speed this up considerably. OS X - just on PowerPC with native OS X coe requires at least 1GB RAM to be fast. If you don’t give your Mac at least 1GB of RAM just for native Intel Mac software alone, it will be very slow. Also if you want to run Linux on it, I would stick with the integrated graphics (Intel) like the Mac Mini because Intel has given the specs up so Linux coders can make drivers.
I have been a hardened Windows user for a very long time. I bought myself a Mac almost by mistake because I wanted to combine a tv, dvd, mp3 store, browser, cd, development machine in something that would look nice on the living room table. I bought an iMac (one of the ones with a hemispherical body and a chrome arm supporting the screen).
I was blown away by it. I plugged it in, it asked me if I wanted it to join my wireless network and then sprang into life. I left it switched on for almost 9 months before the power in the house went out and I had to reboot it. During that time I did pretty much everything with that little machine and it just stood up.
I even put Microsoft Office on it so I could use it for work and it still stayed up.
I now am the happy owner of 4 macs (3 other Mac Minis), dotted around the house, all of which talk to one another and pipe music around with no setup, no effort, no downtime, no maintenance.
By contrast I bought a MacBook Pro as a personal laptop and installed Windows in a partition on it. That was in Nov 06. Since then I have had to reinstall Windows once and I reboot the thing every hour or so when I’m using it for development on the Windows partition. I personally think Windows has a life-span of about 4-6 months before you have to reinstall it. It is just so crap. I think the general public have very low expectations of their computers because of Windows. The Mac is a complete revolution to someone who has been suffering from Windows instability.
When I boot my MacBook Pro in OSX I have no trouble with it at all (and the battery lasts longer), so it’s not the hardware.
I say get rid of Windows, it really is very poor. It’s a long road but maybe one day MS will get the message.
If you just want a computer for the home a Mac is a no brainer. If you want to use it for development its a bit more tricky because often MS have their own components which don’t play too well when you try and run your code on a Windows box. I have found that as long as I stick to the middle of the java road I am fine, but even XML parser behave quite differently across the two.
Down with Windows. Up with OSX! I’d love to give you one of my Macs, but I’m using them at the moment… A mini costs next to nothing and you can use your current peripherals…