As a mac convert for several years, I'd like to comment. These are my thoughts only. I also maintain linux boxes for a living. I use a mac as my desktop machine purely by choice.
On Jan 13, 2012, at 7:08 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote: > This being the Portland Linux/Unix group, I will share a tidbit > about the "other" Unix machine, the Mac. We bought a used Mac > Mini for the office assistant; she is scared of Linux (for now), > and I would rather maintain a Mac than a Windoze box. Good choice. :) > I am slogging through 650 pages of "Learn Mac OSX Snow Leopard" I would suggest google as an alternative. Almost every question I've ever had about OS/X or the hardware I've been able to answer with a google query. > so I can answer her questions and maintain the darned thing. Maintenance is mostly automatic. It will tell you when there are updates, or if you prefer, you can subscribe to various rss feeds that will tell you when an update comes out. > Appendix C lists "Our Favorite Applications", with the prices > at the time of writing. Assuming it's the same book from Apress I found on Amazon, I'm assuming that's the authors favorites. If you ask 10 Mac users, you'll get 5 to 10 different answers. The same as with Linux. When I want a program to do a specific task, I usually start with www.macupdate.com. It's a great repository. It lists FOSS, shareware and commercial programs. > In the Mac's favor, most free software has been ported to it. > So I can stull run vim and Libre Office and Gimp and Firefox > and all that other good stuff. Check out macports. > I am also struck by all of the propeller-(x) keyboard shortcuts. I suspect the Apple key is where the Windows key came from. It's been around years longer. > I haven't got to the programming chapters of the book - perhaps > there are some Really Easy ways (that is, five minutes of work) > to wedge open source apps into the Mac paradigm. Doubtful. I have perl, php, gcc and python installed on my mac. Macports will get you almost everything you can get on your linux box. Part of my requirements for my laptop is that 'it just works'. If I have to futz with it, ever, then I'm not doing my job nor my boss any good. OS/X gives me that more than any other OS ever has. Yes, there was a learning curve, but now that the learning curve is mostly over, I'm more productive, and have fewer issues than either Windows or Linux gave me. Russell Johnson r...@dimstar.net _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
