I am the proud owner of a new Titanium G4 Powerbook. My folks just bought it for me as a grand birthday present. I had been whinging about my old Sony 505F laptop for months. A very light laptop (about 2.5 lbs) but unfortunately woefully underpowered for the uses I have been putting it to. I've maxed the RAM and replaced the hard disk but it still grinds a bit when I run it under Linux (Knoppix).
I have been a Linux user since about 1994 (when I first used Slackware to run my Webserver). It came easily since I had used Unix since 1979, and I found the transition very easy. I've always used Linux for my servers and only recently gave any thought to using it on a desktop.
I've got several systems at home and had pretty much given up on the Macs 'cause the System 7/8/9 thing had gotten really old. Just way too crufty and really showing its age. My home systems tend to be PCs I've built and they either run Linux (Mandrake, Knoppix, occasionally Red Hat) or Microsoft Win98SE (can't stand Win2k). When I read that OS X was based on a Unix fork, and I could use most of what I knew about Linux, I had to check it out.
Apple has managed a really tight integration of the graphical environment with the underlying BSD-derived OS. Perhaps a little too tight for the hacker in me (as I am still learning where everything is and how to control it). But it does what it was designed for admirably well. They have really taken the concept of Linux/Unix/BSD to the desktop very, very well. If either the Gnome or KDE projects reach this level of sophistication, Microsoft's days will be numbered as a purveyor of operating systems.
Of course, there are teething pains. I need a basic set of apps to be able to do my work. I have the MS suite of Office on the laptop, but I need project management software and a good IDE for D/HTML and a good graphics manipulation program. So I've been struggling with getting Fink and X11 running under OS X so that I can take advantage of all that free software (like the GIMP and Mr. Project). More on this later after I update to Panther and get it all running. I think I'll have to write a HOWTO for others who want to do the same thing.
I can finally be happy buying Apple hardware again. I can only hope their market share rises to match the quality of their efforts.
Posted by artandscience at December 14, 2003 06:38 PMHey, steph, i was spying this nice blog of yours, Kim has osx on her new computer .
Is true it's nice! and the new apples are good computers. We got the same problem with software...and untill u don't have the software you need you're fucked
A last thing it was game to set up the net with w2k and virtual pc is not too bad!