On Mon, 22 Oct 2001 18:02:30 -0700 (PDT), Mel Roman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi everyone. > > I_ve been playing with linux (ML8.1) for a little > while on my home machine (an old P166). Our family is > getting to the point where we need a second machine, > so I_m trying to decide on the merits of going with a > PowerPC (Mac) architecture (perhaps a new Mac G4) > instead of Intel. I forsee my current machine being > used primarily as a linux box (file/print server, > database server, secondary desktop for me). We would > use the newer machine as the primary (user-friendly) > desktop that all family members will be comfortable > using.
So long as the price is right (and remember that you tend to get better quality with Mac hardware) and you don't buy into the "MegaHertz Myth", a Mac would be fine for you. One thing to be wary of is the Classic environment. There is little point in MacOS X if you're running most of your apps through Classic emulation. This situation will obviously improve over time, as more apps get written/ported to MacOS X. > One of the things about the Mac that caught my > attention was that its new OS X is basically another > Unix variant. Aside from being more stable than > Windows, Im hoping that each machine would be able to > easily mount the others file systems. Has anyone tried > this? I would expect it to be simply a matter of > starting up an NFS service. I know that you can > similarly use SAMBA to serve files to a Windows > client, but I understand that this would be more > limiting (the linux box cant write to the Windows > partitions, etc...). MacOS X is based on FreeBSD, which is a very solid OS indeed. I think GNU/Linux can read the Mac HFS, but don't quote me on that :) I'm quite sure that SAMBA _can_ write to Windows partitions. > I know that several distributions (Mandrake, SuSe, and > Debian) come in PPC flavours, but I sometimes wonder > if they will continue to find it worthwhile to develop > for PPC. Although I expect that we would usually use > OS X on the Mac, I would eventually want to someday > put linux on that machine also. How does everyone > else feel about the future of linux support for the > Mac? I think the future is bright. Mandrake have only recently moved into the PPC arena, so they must have had a reason to do so. Macs are really hotting-up in both hardware and software. 64-bit G5s are due next year, and the Mac is improving as a server and gaming platform (e.g. the Mac had GeForce3 suport before the PC). MacOS X looks like the best release yet. I think its UNIX roots will get people more interested in trying alternate OSs like GNU/Linux. Apps like OpenOffice, Mozilla and Opera will be available for both MacOS and GNU/linux, so switching between OSs will be relatively easy. > I would be interested in any thoughts/experiences > people have concerning Mac vs Intel architecture > (either relating to the above or in any other > respect). > > Thanks in advance, > > Mel -- Sridhar Dhanapalan "I'm not a big believer in revolutions. What people call revolutions in technology were more of a shift in perception - from big machines to PC's (the _technology_ just evolved, fairly slowly at that), and from PC's to the internet. The next "revolution" is going to be the same thing - not about the technology itself being revolutionary, but a shift in how you look at it and how you use it." -- Linus Torvalds
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