the story so far...
a few months ago my father purchased an ibook, ostensibly to learn about apples (i advised a trip to the grocer). after a few weeks of messing, the poor thing was condemned to rot in my closet (again, ostensibly to one day sell... ha!). yesterday i was cleaning house and decided to resurrect it. i freed it from his evil messings with a clean install of panther (mac os 10.3). many many hours, network connectivity troubles (getting a unix based os to talk to windows nt), i'm online through the mac os edition of mozilla, listening to ogg vorbis music through a hacked quicktime, and very impressed by macs.

i'm a pc user. always have been. probably always will be. but thus far i have greatly enjoyed the way this system is configured. if you want to dig into the guts of the system, it's all right there for you. worst case scenario you open up a bash line and go at it. best case toplevel scenario you just smile and work on stuff. it's a little funky sometimes and seems to have a bit of a finicky streak, but i could honestly see myself working on one of these on the road. it's much lighter than my emachines 5312 notebook, and except for the fact that i have no games for mac os, this would be a brilliant rig. i had to reconfigure as much of the shell as the default controls allow (gutting the dock, getting rid of some of those funky default artifacts...). i'm a little unhappy with how unconfigurable the shell is (apparently it's something that has become a problem after os 9), but i think it works pretty well. much better than it had been made out to by some of the pc users in my life. *cough*

may the flames commence!

omq ur lieing pc rulz

But yeah, they're not all that bad.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

They're top of the line of graphics work and the new OS is stable and easy to use. They just don't have the game support that PCs do.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Macs are good if you don't game, and have a plethora of cash.

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I'd give you some links to some sites that have customization tool on them, but kind little Firefox seems to have LOST all of my bloody bookmarks in the move to my new PC. Either that, or I just don't have a clue where their stored.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
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Frogblast the Vent-Core!

Just use Linux...

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"Bantha's are filthy animals.......I don't eat filthy animals."

"Laugh it up Fuzzball!"
-Han Solo

Ahh yes... I will admit that the Panther install was quite reminiscent of an installation of a new Linux distro. Something that i've liked about MacOS is that it's UNIX without being UNIX. It's like the days of Win3x; if I want command line I can have it, otherwise I've got that veritable eye candy factory Aqua shell to come crying back to. If I were to fully go down the Linux path I would have to go all the way with probably either NetBSD or FreeBSD (which of course aren't even Linux). Of course, I know there is a way to compile a custom FreeBSD kernel that will run on a Mac... but at that point why even bother? Unlike the UNIX or Linux communities (not so much Linux anymore), I can walk into CompUSA and pick up copies of, say, CorelDraw and RealMYST, walk home, load up, and be happy. The day when Linux offers me that degree of ease and compatibility is the day when I will jump ship without hesitation. Until then I'll just smile with my shiny new toy.

I'd love an iBook. I've got a 33Mhz Powerbook 109CS sitting in a corner of my room. I hold much love for that little computer. It's done everything I've ever asked of it. It might be slow to do it, but it does DO IT. It's gotten me through 4 years of High School when I'd forget about a paper and have to write it at 2 in the morning. It's gone to school with me when it was simply easier to have a digital copy of a research paper to look it.

It may only have 2 and a half minutes of battery life (literally) now, and it may be slightly weird sometimes because it was knocked off a table once, and it may be old and slow, but I absolutely LOVE IT. It's held up longer than any PC I've ever had.

I haven't had the pleasure of using a new Apple powerbook for extended periods of time, but if they still build them like they built mine, they make a damned fine product.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

Now you can play the 3 Escape Velocity games! (although the third was ported to PC too, much to my delight)

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A little less conversation, a little more action
"This world is made of love and peace!"
"Let's live today, let's live tomorrow, and let's live the day after that, even if it means living in eternal pain."
- Vash the Stampede

A good mate of mine has a lovely little ibook, and I must admit to also being very impressed by it. The funny thing is, it networked with my xp pro laptop very swiftly and easily - crossover cable in, share folders on mine, mount them on his end. Quick and easy. *shrugs*

They are so light and portable though, it's amazing - he's had Charlemagne (ibook) about two years before I got Geoff (laptop), but it's still TINY in comparison!

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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

i don't know what's up with the networking. when i first set it up i just pulled out the cat5 from the back of my emachines notebook and stuffed it into the mac, and it worked fine. later after i closed the window the system refused to acknowledge the fact that it could access the network. it would ask me to mount the drive, but then it wouldn't allow me to mount. a quick trip to apple's support site later i thought i had the answer. completely reconfigured and i still got the problem. okfine. restart both systems in question. and it works! until i close the finder window on the mac... must just be pc user ineptitude at work. i think i'll play with it some more tonight and see what i get.

for the time this came out (october '02 i believe was when apple first unveiled this model), this thing is tiny. the system has a marginally larger footprint than the 12" screen, and it's completely encased in solid white plastic. let's just say that when i use my emachines i'm afraid i'm going to get a pile of smoking plastic on my desk, but i suspect the apple is going to be up for the job for years to come. and if i know the company, i'll probably be able to upgrade the os for at least another two years.

as far as i'm concerned this can become a workhorse. from a media perspective it's perfect with a dvd/cdrw drive and a 40gb hard drive, and it will make a great typing system. i forsee lugging (lugging... yeah, sure... strolling ) this thing with me to uni.

ok, i'm going to shut up about the mac now.

and thanks for the suggestion chaz, they look most interesting.

Go to your local CompUSA and pick up UT2004, and prepare to jump ship

Anyway, any opinion you have of Macs is null and void considering the fact that you own, and use an Emachines willingly.

I think personally Macs had a market, but have totally lost it now with the insurgance of Linux, and loss of critical Mac support (Adobe Premiere, for example, a high-end video editing program, which was built for PC and Macs, is no longer available for it. Not to mention, Photoshop is heading in the same direction).

Macs used to own the graphics and video editing department, but windows has completely overshadowed it lately.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

I have a Toshiba laptop (2 ghz P4M), which is nice, but if I would have had control over which one to get (instead of my mom buying it and deciding she didn't want it) I probably would have bought something with a REAL video card in it or an iBook. My girlfriend just got a new iBook for college, and it's absolutely perfect for her because she's not really into computers, but she's studying and performing music.

Right now I'm running Enlightenment with the Aqua theme, I love it.

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"Windows [n.]
A thirty-two bit extension and GUI shell to a sixteen bit patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition."

*to his emachines*
there, there. it's ok. i know matty's dissing on you, but don't you take it to heart. he's just a meanie with no appreciation for how much i hacked you when i got you. yes. it's alright. i'll get you a cookie later, ok?

you see, there is a very basic problem with that. i am a happy owner of ut2004, but in order for me to jump ship to linux because of that one very big thing is going to have to happen:

i'm going to have to start liking it.

i'm not seeing this insurgence of linux that you're talking about. i consider myself a power user, but even i gave up on linux after a while. yes it was powerful. yes it was stable. but it was useless. could i play moderately old game on it? no. could i word process? sure. but my old compaq 486sx 25 laptop does that. for my use it was probably worthwhile with a dual boot into windows for games, but i found that to be rather pointless. ok, so if i want to work on something i have to reboot the system into linux... just to have to repeat the process because i want to do something really fast in a game or photoshop or whatever. for the vast uses of the home system, linux is useless. where's the cheap print studio or the latest incarnation of math blaster? where's some cheesy photo editing suite? linux just doesn't have them. in the very near future it will, but then the second problem with linux still remains. the thing is not user friendly. on a win xp system, if you rip out a modem and shove in a new one it is recognized on boot. in linux, god help you if you didn't get a standard modem, because you're going to have to compile drivers and blah. we're talking someone who doesn't even know how to install something with f*ing plug and play, and you're trying to explain the make command? no. geeks of +1 like us can go to linux, but the vast majority of the western market just isn't going to be there. and that is where the money is. windows is easy; xp is the easiest so far, longhorn is going to take over the world, but when it comes to actual user friendliness and lack of user thought, mac has everyone beat.

[This message has been edited by Majiir (edited August 18, 2004).]

Yeah, but you pay 2000 extra to get that user-friendliness. I don't have that kinda cash.

You can play basically all games on Linux--if you have an nVidia card and WineX (or Cedega rather). And don't suck at using Linux.

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That's the problem right there. Sure it can be done. The problem is using the damn system. People as a whole do NOT know how to run Linux. They DO know how to run Windows and/or a Macintosh. If they know one, most of the basic skills translate over to the other. From what I keep hearing, Linux isn't like that if you want real power out of it.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

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WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

He's the one that claimed to be a "power user". I could get Knoppix doing what I wanted just fine. Seriously, it's not that hard.

Flexor--beautiful.

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Seriously, though... why CAN'T linux be as easy to use as windows? Why can't there be some sort of easy mode that you can toggle on and use during the transitional period from windows to linux? Until Linux is as easy to use as a mac
(under the hood, both are very similar) why can't they go the rest of the way and simplify linux for those that want it that way, and still have the option of regular mode for more experienced users? Linux is all about choice, so after all, why should a newbie have to adapt to the more difficult enviromnent?


Why can't stuff like reconizing new hardware, etc. be universally automatic? if there's enough demand, hardware makers will release linux drivers as well.

Stuff like console commands, bash, etc. scares away newbies and it had me tearing my hair out at first. The learning curve for windows xp is about an hour or two. I spent all summer experimenting with linux and I'm barely proficient, such as it is. That is not newbie friendly.

Linux is capable of killing Microsoft. The only thing keeping it out of the mainstream market is the considerable learning curve and its less than perfect range of hardware compatibility. If those problems were fixed,and linux kept itself free (or with minimal pricing to cover packaging/distribution) , MS would be in some REAL DEEP S***. How could they compete with the ideal linux-based os that is both easy to use, yet extremely powerful, versatile, and customizable if needed, and built using the uber-stable linux kernel, and sold at less than half the price of Windows?


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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.



[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited August 18, 2004).]

That's why Linux exists. It exists to give advanced users a second choice. Not to kill Microsoft. Linux is made to weed out the "unworthy", and I can see myself going back to it sometime very soon. I loved every minute of it--because the way it came together was BEAUTIFUL. After you get to know it, it's so easy to use, so simple to operate. It's like a piece of art. Ah well, enough of my rambling.

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Damn elitists.



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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

It's not eliticism--it's so you don't have tons of idiots asking why their RAM isn't big enough to install their copy of an actual ISO burned to a disc that says "Doom 1"

Stuff like that. If you don't know how to use Linux, there's a bit of help for you, but for the most part, you'd better learn on your own damn quick

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And an attitude like that is supposed to make people WANT to switch over and try out this system?

No thanks. I'll continue *****ing at Windows until I get fed up enough to move completely to my iMac and just use this thing for games.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

I actually consider myself to be pretty lucky. Thanks to our school, I grew up using Macs at school, and Windows at home. I'm not saying I'm a so-called "power user", but I can pretty much do anything I need to on either system. Linux, on the other hand, I'm not so eager to dive into. I'm perfectly happy with XP Pro, so there's really no reason for me to re-learn how to operate my computer. I can definately see why some would opt to switch, however.

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Some of you should learn to think a bit and discover - *gasp* - that someone can dislike Michael Moore, Kerry, and Bush!
-Wolfy

i was wondering when we were going to get the linux converts preaching their beliefs. before i say anything else that someone is probably going to take offense to, i must throw this in:

i love linux.

i adore it. i remember the first time i installed mandrake more than four years ago when i barely knew anything, and being completely blown away by it. i remember fiddling with it on my father's rig last year and still being very impressed by it. as i said, i think it is immensly powerful, amazingly stable, and extremely versatile. how often can i come up to a windows or mac user and say, "hey yeah, your os is running inefficiently, you really need to recompile your kernel!" not ever going to happen.

my question is almost one of philosophy pertaining to the amount of administration to the systems. say i've got a regular app (not java or any kind of modular setup), and i want to install it. nay, i need to compile it and then think about the other integration. the amount of work i need to do to get the app running is something i don't consider to be worthwhile.

if i were to jump over to linux today i would lose almost nothing. i play half the games i once did, and other than outlook express and windows itself, i've completely done away with apps that don't come in linux flavors. the reason why i don't is because of that amount of per-app administration. i just don't consider it worth my time. my windows boxes are very stable; i believe my current record stands at 13 days between reboots on a system that gets all sorts of things thrown at it in any given day. i know the code that is running here, and i know how to react to any little ideosynchrosies that crop up.

the question i ask the linux users is, why? why should i jump from something i'm comfortable with, have generally worked the bugs out of, and know inside and out for some supposedly "better" operating system? what is so much greater that it is going to give me that it's worth going over? very soon when longhorn and tcpa force me out of the windows arena, i'm going to go over without regrets.

right now linux stands to conquer the internet. between titans like redhat and apache, it stands that in the future at least 80% of all servers will be running linux. that's great, but it's never going to be more than enterprise at that rate. the home users will still be using their home operating systems. they want to know why their cupholders are broken, not the 'abstract concepts' of "cd .." or "ls". quite simply, if you want linux to be an elitist club, stop trying to say it can take over the world. because if you want it to take over, you're going to have to consider the lusers.

Because it's not that hard. Ever hear of Gentoo and/or Debian? "apt-cache search firefox" "apt-get firefox(whatever version here)" Wow, real hard. The only thing that's really hard on *nix is when you have major problems, major incompatibilities. But then, that's your fault for not doing your research beforehand (for instance, if your 9800 pro doesn't work on linux, don't blame *nix, blame ATi and yourself.)

Why switch? No viruses, no spyware, easier to use (Run>>xmms so easy). The only reason NOT to switch, is if you game

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[This message has been edited by Dj Yoshi (edited August 20, 2004).]

And people are supposed to know this right off the bat?

See, I think that's my biggest problem with what you're saying right now. You're all for Linux and having the world switch over to it, but you act as though the people are going to have to figure out everything for themselves.

FYI, OS X also has no viruses, very little spyware (I think I've heard of maybe two or three), and is also easy to use. Much easier to use than Linux if you're comming straight from Windows since the basics of how to run the system are similar.

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Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

I never said I wanted the world to switch. I just think as many people should as possible. There are just some people who aren't destined for it.

The main problem is everyone thinks it's harder than it is--including you. It's not that hard, RTFM and you'll be more than fine.

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