You could always get a Playstation (et al). They cost less than a decent video card for a PC. And you aren't always having to get a new one every time a new game comes out (that requires more system than what you have). PC's for gaming can be an expensive hobby.

 

I can think of many things that are easily done with the stroke of the mouse vs. a ton of keystrokes...this argument is completely debatable depending on what you are trying to do.

That's an interesting lens you are looking through. The distortion is so bad it makes you think the picture is clear. There are too many ways to break down that comment, but then it would just become an argument trying to change your opinion that seems pretty well set in stone.

Why would I care to run multiple OS's if one does the job just fine? That sounds like of like something that's "cute" and gives someone a "warm fuzzy" feeling inside--"hey, look at this, isn't that cool?" "Ok, but what's it for?" "I don't know, but isn't it cool?"

I like to do video editing. I've made my own original short stories and have a couple of scripted projects in the works. Enlighten me as to how Linux or a derivative would be better than the Mac I have.

 

Ouch!
Have you seen the G5 duals?
8 gig of RAM
I guess the Mac people are more like a cult....
too bad the pc in my house is only used to play silly games
The Mac does the more important stuff like earn my living
Sorry Ken could not resist

 

Ummmmmm, okay whatever, I shut my mouth in this conversation quite a while ago when I realized that I was considerably outclassed by the knowledge some of these people (Webmaster included) that do this kind of thing for a living have brought to this conversation, and have since just turned into an observer whos glad someone with considerable knowledge is still backing Apple products, your statement lacks thoughtfullness, and is just plain incorrect, back off before you get stepped on by the big boys here.....

 

Actually, the work horses are the Unix boxes. Linux and Solaris, mostly. No one who cares about uptimes and SLAs uses Windows. It's tough to sell your product online when your servers won't scale and aren't as stable as the competition's.

Edit: Can you imagine *this* site running Windows? *hack* *cough* *crash* didn't think so.

Edit Again: I watched the movie. What a waste of time! If I want someone to distort the facts for me, I'll go read the New York Times.

 

[I've avoided even responding to the obviously dumb posts, like you have]

You know what's funny? The third-fasted computer in the world is about 1/3 as fast as the fastest, was built at a fraction of the cost (about 1/50th the cost) and is made up of a cluster of PC's...wait no, that's not right...MACS. Yep, and those have been upgraded, putting the newer version into the #2 slot.

It's too bad that Macs aren't "real Unix", what with technologies like Xgrid that will allow us common-folk to cluster our home computers to harness even more processing power. I guess that's the kind of stuff that makes us feel "warm and fuzzy" that others think are just cute little puppies.

Of course, setting up a traditional cluster is something that might take a few hours or as much as a whole day. I guess unless it takes weeks of pulling your hair out it must not be a "real" computer, huh?

I'll bet you're getting a kick out of this thread as much as I am.

 

LOL, good one! Even Microsoft can't imagine their site running Windows! They run Unix, too!

 

System administration, web publishing, etc. There are a lot of graphical tools that can do some of that, but none of them give the level of control the keyboard does. For instance, anyone who knows Apache config files inside and out can tell you that Webmin won't do everything a power user needs to do.

Its not distortion. Apple went with the BSD model because the license allows commercial use of the source without payment. Again, try editing many of the config files and see if you get the results you should get under Unix OS's.

Linux for day to day use, but need Windows for Quickbooks. Running it in a Window under Linux/VMware is a useful tool, not a warm fuzzy. Would switch over to a Linux book-keeping system but I have too many years of data invested in Quickbooks and I can't justify retraining my employees.

Major video editing on large scale projects is all going towards Linux. The one area Apple has traditionally dominated they are losing....

Movies:
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Titanic, Shrek, Shrek II, Star Wars Episode II, Nutty Professor II, Pitch Black, Mission Impossible II, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Enemy at the Gates, Sinbad, Scooby-Doo, Lord Of the Rings, Harry Pottle, Dante's Peak, What Dreams May Come, Armageddon, Stuart Little, Fight Club, The Grinch, The Sixth Day, Rules oF Engagement, X-Men, Red Planet, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Fast and The Furious, Dr. Doolittle II, Final Fantasy, Planet of the Apes, A Beautiful Mind, Collateral Damage, Blade II, Star Trek: Nemisis, The Time Machine, The Matrix Reloaded, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Junglebook 2, Incredible Hulk, Pirates of the Caribbean to name a few....

Motion Picture studios using Linux as their primary video platform:
Digital Domain
Disney
Double Negative
DreamWorks
Flash Film Works
Hammerhead
Industrial Light & Magic
Rhythm & Hues
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Tippett Studio
Weta Digital

Where have you been the last 5 years that you haven't aware of at least one of those movies and Linux's growing dominance in the hard-core video editing market?

 

That's a great story. Too bad its not true.
http://www.top500.org/list/2004/06/

I've never found it that difficult with Linux. Then again, I've never expected a Macintosh user to be able to handle such a thing without the OS holding their hand. Admittedly, I'm not the average user... which is why I'm running Linux.

 

Nice! I went to school at #95. And, look at #301.

What they leave out are the clusters run by the NSA - you can bet they dedicate VAST amounts of computing power to cracking ciphers.

 

NSA doesn't release a lot of info about their clusters.....

 

Compaq Presario 5000...nothing special

 

Ken, andy and others......

Thanks for making this a very interesting, entertaining, and educational thread, I should have brought my scratch pad to take notes, because all you guys are bringing some heavy facts to this debate/conversation, and its cool to see.

Hey Ken....Im sure glad I have my Mac OS to hold my hand, because the stuff you guys are talking about loses me in the dust

Everyday user here who loves his MAC, but doesnt really have anything against PC's either, and knows nothing of the stuff you guys are talking about

 

About 5 years ago you could walk in any store and buy a Mac off the shelf for $2500.00 or a PC for 1000.00, No brainer! Well you can't find a mac in any sotore now. Most had them on the shelf for years and had to dump them in the trash and cut the loses. I have not seen a mac for 2 or 3 years and I am in several homes and business ever day. Plus no support around here for the mac, no one will work on them and no one has parts.

 

Here's the honest truth from me....

I just like poking sticks are Mac users. Use whatever works for you. :-) The fact of the matter is what it comes down to these days is what software do you wish to run because the GUI's on pretty much all of them is world class (and Linux is nearly there on the GUI side) and plug-and-play is damn near bullet-proof on both platforms (I've seen Macs die from new hardware just like PCs do!). Viruses really have more to do with numbers. If Macs had 98% of the market and not 2% like they do now, you'd see rampent virus activity on them just like you do with Windows. A pure Unix environment is less subject to viruses (like Linux and pure BSD OSs) because of their permissions based system for nearly everything but they do exist.

Personally, I want a solid tool that offers a lot of band for the buck. For the web servers nothing's going to beat Linux except Free BSD for stability and its damn near a draw on that. The software selection these days for Linux is enormous and most of it is free. For stability, the FTE server was up for 126 days without a reboot this last time around until one of the 3 year memory sticks bit the dust and the system crashed (the database backend was still chugging away!). Nothing you can really do about a hardware failure without an expensive fault tolerant system. It was a pretty bad failure, because the system runs error correction memory that normally keeps running in the event of most memory errors.

For general office use nothing comes close to Windows for the sheer number of applications available --- that's why so many businesses choose it. Love it or hate it, its needed by many.