My $0.02. Nathan is right on, so I'm just gonna add a few things.
The 17" is really, really big. And heavy. If you're actually moving around with that laptop, I would strongly urge you to look at the 15". If the laptop is going to sit tight most of the time, then fine. Also, Macs work beautifully with multiple monitors, so I use my laptop with a 22" widescreen monitor; my biz partner Jans has a 30" (bastard!) plugged into his 15" MacBook Pro. VBox Ubuntu works great. Dual-booting with Apple's built-in Boot Camp works great too, but it only supports Windows out of the box. There are workarounds to triple-boot on the Interwebs. Dunno about Scribus on the Mac. Anyone using a Mac for DTP is going to use commercial software. This is something else about the Mac - there's a lot of excellent free software (in both senses), but there's also a lot of excellent commercial software. You really should consider paying for some stuff that's really great. And some free software completely SUCKS on the Mac, like GnuPG. Horrible. However, you could use MacPorts or Fink or Homebrew (or all three!) to run free software using X at the same time you're using Apple's GUI (Mac OS X comes with X preinstalled). Of course, X apps will stick out like a sore thumb, but you may not care. I think once you get over the initial adjustment, you'll be very happy, especially if you're past that stage of life where you have time or the inclination to futz around with everything. It's true what they say about a Mac - everything just works. As a 42-year-old man with a 19-month-old and a bunch of jobs, right now in my life, I want "just works". If you do get a Mac, get AppleCare - the extended warranty - as it will save your ass. It gives you a 3-yr warranty instead of 1 yr. However, you have up to 1 yr after you buy the Mac to buy the extended warranty, so you can save your $$$. One more thing - do not get MobileMe. Not worth it. Finally, if you get it, let me know. I can meet with you at the CWELUG & give you some pointers & software & the like. Good luck & have fun! Scott -- R. Scott Granneman [email protected] ~ www.granneman.com ~ granneman.tel Full list of publications @ http://www.granneman.com/publications My new book: Google Apps Deciphered @ http://www.granneman.com/books "Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security" ---Norman Vincent Peale On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Tim and Lisa Beckendorf <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings, > > Perhaps this is a silly question but as I've been using pcs for years I'm in > the dark. I'm contemplating purchasing a Macbook Pro 17 for my work which up > until now has been entirely in a linux environment. If I purchase a Mac, can > I run Ubuntu successfully in something akin to VBox or do I need to have a > dual booting machine? I've been so accustomed to free software and the > beauty that is the Synaptic Package Manager that I'm reluctant to have to > purchase any software. Will the scripts that I've written for rsync, > hpodder, etc. work in the Mac environment? Is anyone using Scribus on Mac > that can comment on its performance (I use it a lot). > > Sorry if these questions are not in the vein of this list but I know that > Scott is a Mac advocate and I'd appreciate any helpful comments. > > Thank you, > > Tim > > -- > Central West End Linux Users Group (via Google Groups) > Main page: http://www.cwelug.org > To post: [email protected] > To subscribe: [email protected] > To unsubscribe: [email protected] > More options: http://groups.google.com/group/cwelug > -- Central West End Linux Users Group (via Google Groups) Main page: http://www.cwelug.org To post: [email protected] To subscribe: [email protected] To unsubscribe: [email protected] More options: http://groups.google.com/group/cwelug
