On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 3:16 PM, Ken Lauffenburger <[email protected]> wrote: > > One more recommendation for MacBook Pro. I bought this unit (17" > version maxed out) a year ago and I love it. No hardware or software > problems so far and screaming fast. I use VMware Fusion to run Gentoo > Linux on it and I am in that context at least 90% of the time. So far > I have developed 5 PCBs using gEDA on Linux/VMware on this unit. > Originally I had planned on installing Linux natively on the MacBook > using a separate partition (I have heard it works great) but I have > found that I like the ability to switch between OSX and Linux quickly > without a reboot. > --ken
I'll add my two cents on this since I use a MacBook Pro for all of my desktop stuff. (For compute-intensive apps, I have a server at home running Linux.) Apple's hardware is very good (although be careful with first production runs of brand new models). You can find similar-spec'd machines from other manufacturers for less, but they often skimp on something hard to find in the catalog description (FSB speed, memory speed, SATA speed), so similar specs doesn't mean the same performance. You get what you pay for. I don't know of anyone with a cheapo $600 notebook that's really happy with it. AppleCare is excellent. For things that you can DIY, they'll cross ship you a replacement that usually arrives the next day (although they'll tell you it should take three, it always just takes one). I did have a problem with my wireless that required shipping it back: The day after I called, the empty box arrived. I shipped it out that day. It arrived at apple the next day, they fixed it and shipped it out that same day, returning to my house the next. I was without my computer for roughly 48 hours. Also, if you're reasonably technical and have done due diligence to isolate a problem, Apple won't argue with you. I had some instability issues that turned out to be caused by the memories overheating. When I was able to isolate that, they promptly shipped me replacements, no questions asked. My friends with Dells and Toshibas report much less satisfactory customer service experiences, although I have heard good things about HP. Speaking of overheating, my 65nm Core2 Duo gets really hot when running compute-intensive apps (which is why I built the Linux server). I was running some seriously SSE-heavy neural net code on both cores at the same time, and the CPU die approached 90 degrees C (which people on Apple forums said is safe!). I hear the newer models with the 45nm CPUs don't get so hot. As for software, Leopard had some growing pains early on, but it's very stable now. There are still some bugs here and there in 10.5.6. For instance, there's some bug in the handling of collating and duplexing in the Print dialog that they still haven't fixed. But for the most part, hardware just works, most peripherals are just recognized, settings are graphical and intuitive. They do have the usual drawbacks of running a non-Free operating system; for instance, you never know if someone looked at your bug report, and it takes months to get a fix, not to mention that you have no ability to fix problems yourself. Oh, and there's the fact that they keep adding various kinds of DRM support to their hardware and software (I buy all of my music from Amazon or on CD, never from iTunes). Their GUI system, Cocoa, is very nice, but it's kinda goofy in how it basically forces you to use Objective-C if you want to write fully-featured native apps. MacOS isn't quite as 'computer knows best' as is often suggested. The graphical setup gives you 95% of what anyone would need, and when that's enough, just google for how to do stuff for FreeBSD to find out how to hack it "under the hood." Also, there's tons of Free Software for MacOS. Plenty native, and using something like Fink, you can have access to all the UNIX/Linux tools you want (mostly using X11 for graphics). You can get one of the white MacBooks for $999. Contrary to what Apple claims, the white MacBook will handle 3GB just fine. Only go to a MacBook Pro if you really need 4GB of RAM, a larger internal hard drive (I have multiple firewire externals here, actually), or graphics with dedicated memory. For compute-intensive stuff, the white MacBook is pretty darn fast, although the MBP is noticeably faster. If you get one of the newer MBPs and run compute-intensive apps for long periods, let me know how it goes with the heat. Otherwise, just get a white MacBook. Don't be tempted to get the highest-end model just because it's "cooler." You'll end up spending a lot of extra money on something you won't fully utilize. In fact, I think probably the biggest reason for getting the MBP is the higher display resolution. Finally, if you decide you hate MacOS X, you can install Windows on it using Boot Camp. If you can't stand to use a proprietary OS, you can install Linux or *BSD on it, and it will work fine, although you may have some challenges with the wireless. -- Timothy Normand Miller http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti Open Graphics Project _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
