My own background includes a deep interest in computing, the sciences, and mathematics from a personal (hobby) perspective together with nearly 20 years of experience with various OS's, including various flavors of unix, in the real IT world. I am also considering a graduate program but it unifies computer programming with biological/chemical research. Also I've been involved with Linux for a njumber of years (including Red Hat and YDL) and about a month ago received cash so that I could purchase whatever system I wished. I chose a 1.67GHz 15" G4 Powerbook with 1 GB RAM and 64 MB Video RAM and an 80 GB HD. This choice was intentional and not a "next best" choice.
Recall that Altivec allows 128bit processing whereas other competing architectures are not even ready for true 64bit processing and one sees why the G4 and G5 series are the only games in town in serious programming and research. If one is not afflicted with laziness one can write whatever tools one needs and there is no reason to use processors (such as Intel, AMD and the like) whose purpose is to address more general and less demanding scientific analytic procedural processes.
Everyone knows that the desktop models and G5s are extensible in various ways what is unique about this model Powerbook is that there are three and probably other hardware extensions to it's base design. The RAM maxes at 2GB, the Video RAM at 128 MG, and the HD at 100 GB!
Choosing carefully, I got the PB, Tech Tools Pro by Micromat, and had enough cash left over to purchase a Haliburton suitcase to protect the PB.
The case protects the PB against the variances of weather including heat, water vapor and condensation; none of which other carrying arrangements do as well, in comparison. You did mention about making the PB last...so if you wish to do it right remember your physics! The fact that others do not is evident in what others have complained about regarding the failures they discovered with the equipment under their care.
One more thing...you will get along perfectly fine with using OpenOffice.org as opposed to what one unamed participant in this list has called MS (spit) Office... he is not alone, as I also have been quite creative in submitting my own modifications to that name.
Discussion regarding OS X and YDL.
OS X via the Terminal has access to bash, tcsh, csh, sh; I have not played with all of them, but I have moved between them and each shell behaves as it should in any other unix. There are compilers for Objective C, C, C++ and others. Scripts or macros can be written to modify how Terminal and vim behave within Mac OS X. Although there are differences in how this is done in every unix what works within Darwin is easy to determine if one is sufficiently experienced and skilled and patient to implement what one wishes to implement.
The best thing about Linux and YDL in particular is the availability of turning the PB into a server of one's own. However, you must partition the HD to do so; the problems involved in this method requires a graduate course in itself to investigate sufficiently; this can be avoided entirely however by
purchasing from Terra Soft YDL installed onto (I kid you not) -- an iPod -- this will allow you to have YDL booting from and running from the iPod!
Regarding other distributions of Linux; besides their funny sounding names none of them are as cool as running a Red Hat compliant Linux from an iPod!
Enough said!
Best wishes....
On May 4, 2005, at 5:21 PM, Matthew Page wrote:
This is not flame-bait.
I am soon going to be going to graduate school to get myself a little more edumacated. I plan on following a parallel programming/data visualization track. (Just as background information for my question.)
The question: I plan on running Linux on a laptop, so my question to you is this... Is there a compelling reason to buy a Powerbook and put Linux on it instead of ordering a fat-bob x86 laptop and putting Linux on it?
I have about $3000 in the budget and the laptop should be able to last me through a PHD without having to be replaced. (If possible... I'm not talking about theft here...)
Any opinions are welcome!
- Matt
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