Re: [tlug] Linux-compatible Mac laptop?

["Jonathan Q" <jq@example.com>]

On 4/10/2007, "Micheal Cooper" <mcooper@example.com> wrote:


>
>Apple definitely has a lot to learn when it comes to mouse and
>keyboard stuff.

>Mac friend said that it would just take a little time. I only started
>with this Mac thing a few weeks ago.

I've had this MacBook Pro for about 3 months now and it really no longer
bugs me. If I were a really fast typist, maybe that would be different,
I dunno, but putting two fingers on the track pad and clicking = a right
click, and that no longer bugs me at all. No middle-click functionality
that I'm aware of, but I don't mind command-v for paste. The keyboard
is very nice, I may like it even better than a Thinkpad (which,
considering how much I love Thinkpads, says a lot).
as 140,000 yen new.

>Well, the Macs are packing dual core, and they are very speedy, and
>the screens are beautiful (though I think my Vaio beats 'em). On the
>other hand, even with the decrease in prices following the switch to
>Intel, Macs still are much more expensive than PCs.

Than which PCs? My company paid around $2000 for this MacBook Pro, and
high-end PC notebooks with similar feature sets are not far from that
(some are more) and they have the huge disadvantage of coming with
Windows. Go shopping for a preinstalled Linux Thinkpad like those at
Emperor and you can easily pay more than this. That's not to take
anything away from Emperor, I hear great things about them, but Mac
notebooks are not unreasonably priced, IMO. They're high-end machines
that will have a very long service life.

>My Mac friend (persistent bastard) pointed out that the OS includes
>software that you don't get with a PC, but I am rather on the fence
>about whether that justifies the difference in price or not.

This is true, too, now that you mention it :)  If you're paying for a
proprietary OS license, how much more is OS X worth than XP or Vista?
While it might be hard to put a dollar number on the stability and good
design (including how it does such a nice job of staying out of your way
and not making you cuss much, something Windows totally fails), but IMO
the answer is "a lot."


>If you have to support Mac and Windows (and maybe Linux) and would
>like to have everything on one machine, you have to get a Mac with
>Parallels because you cannot run MacOS in a VM on PC.

This is also a plus. I don't use Windows in Parallels much (haven't
booted it in weeks, just don't have the need), but when I do, it's
quite fast in my experience more stable than native XP. Kubuntu in a
Parallels VM is faster than it is natively on my Athlon 64 3800+. This
Core 2 Duo rocks.

I guess the best analysis of whether a Mac is worth any cost premium you
pay compared to high-end PC notebooks such as the T60 or a top-line Vaio
is the answer to the question "Would you buy one with your own money?"
My answer to that is "yes."

Jonathan