Buzz Out Loud Lounge: The PC or The Mac--That Is the Question

"If Linux the best OS?"

by Kees Bakker  - 9/10/07 3:14 PM

If you want to play a game that's not available for Linux (and, yes, they certainly exist, let's take the rather popular World of Warcraft as an example: runs only on Windows and Mac) Linux definitely would NOT be the best OS.
And I don't think iMovie runs on it, so better find a (open source) alternative for that program.

Conclusion: it all depends on what you want to do with it. An OS is just a means to do it.

Kees

It's surely different according to...

... What you know, what you can afford, whether you can adapt easily, etc.

For me - taking Alegoo's points of reference - the relative tardiness of Expose (compared to the MX Revolution's Windows app switcher), the relative pointlessness of Dashboard (as opposed to the always-visible Sidebar) and the relative inadequacy of Front Row (in comparison to Vista Media Center) are among the things that keeps me going back to Windows.

There's also hardware - and I'm firmly in the Windows camp here, although I do wish it all looked as good as Apple's do. Apple hardware falls behind in build quality or durability compared to the best I could buy on the Windows side. I'm a 'tick all boxes when ordering' sort of guy so when I buy a supposedly premium machine, I have a few expectations apart from how it looks - which Apples have in general failed to meet.

I have dedicated Linux PC's, Windows machines of course and Macs. Admittedly though, about 80% of my professional time and about 95% of my entertainment time (including media work in photo, video and music since there are better 'prosumer' tools available under Windows than the 'either/or' simplistic/pro options for OS X) is spent on Windows.

If I had to keep a single platform, it'd be Windows - but I don't have to choose.

You pay little, you get crud.

It applies to all things - including PC's. With Apples, you can't buy a cheap one and that works in their favour, since the machines have to be halfway decent. Doesn't mean they're as good as machines in a similar class of course, which is what I'm comparing.

(NT) Of course, and that's totally unique to Macs, right?

Mac vs. PC

It all depends on what you want your pc for. A Mac is actually less expensive then the Windows folks want you to believe. Software that comes with it is amazing if you're into digital photography, digital video, podcasting, or music. If you go pro level in any of these areas, there's software abound for the Mac. If it's high end computer gaming, stick with a PC for now.

As for Linux, I would suggest getting an older super cheap or hand me down pc, download Ubuntu and play around and see if there's enough open source software to do what all you want to do. Go to the Ubuntu site, search on Apt-get install to find out how to load new programs.

Remember also, the Mac has Bootcamp, Parallels and VMWare Fusion so you can run other OS' on your Mac, either full boot or in a virtual machine. Best of all worlds...

Dennis O.

If you're after apps like

iMovies and GarageBand you're not going to find them on Linux. While we do have some excellent video/audio editors in the works, they're still very much in alpha stages. As soon as they get good enough to attract a large user-base, the quality and overall functionality will trump the competition (as almost all Free software does..eventually.) It's just a matter of getting *good enough* to attract the users, and thus the developers.

If you're just looking to get into Linux before the masses do so you can say you were using it before it was "popular" you might consider scoring one of the new Dellbuntus (http://dell.com/ubuntu).

I was just going through this as well.

I'm in the market for a new computer.

I can't take using this Dell anymore. It's old, its hardware was outdated three months after I bought it because Dell had then refreshed their product line.

So this time, right off the bat... I was looking at switching to an iMac.

I was totally like "gonna do it gonna do it gonna do it" and then I calmed down and thought about it.

One of the (few remaining) things I really like about this Dell is that if something happens to go wrong with a component inside, due to the nature of how IBM-compatible (lol) PCs are built... I can just go over to Best Buy, grab what I need, and replace it.

Likewise, if there's something that I want to add, I can just buy it and throw it in there and have it work.

And yeah... yeah. I know. "But... Frog... a Mac Pro can do that!" Yes it does... but after configuring it like I want it... it costs $3,496. The Dell I'm going to custom order has everything I could ever possibly want, and it has it for just over $2,000.

To me... that's quite a huge difference.