Macs vs PC

[raynepoet]

Are you all aware that Macs, based on Intel chips, can also run Windows software and games quite effectively just by installing Parallels or VMWare Fusion? And for gamers, there's also Crossover Games.

So, anything you can do on a PC, you can also do on a Mac.

 

[Toclafane]

Are you all aware that Macs, based on Intel chips, can also run Windows software and games quite effectively just by installing Parallels or VMWare Fusion? And for gamers, there's also Crossover Games.

So, anything you can do on a PC, you can also do on a Mac.

I can go to Fry's Electronics and build my own PC without violating any EULAs
Can that be done on a Mac ?

 

[wslctrc]

Greetings all ,

I've only ever used microsoft and have heard macintosh operating systems are much more trouble free ... Is this true from anyone's experience here ? Or it it largely some marketing hype ?

Thanks

wm

It's becoming quite clear that this is becoming another Windows/ Mac debate and some are venting their frustrations and/or anger rather than trying to answer the question asked by the OP. I have been through many debates on many forums that start out the same way and I've seen the grass from both sides of the fence. Mac users tend to be holier than though sometimes and Windows users tend to zero in on costs or the inability to upgrade.
I would just like to say that the inability to upgrade is sometimes unfortunate and the price is a little higher than I would rather pay, but everyone has an opinion and obviously Apple must be doing something right because market share numbers have been proven and they are proven to be growing in percentage, and these cannot be all just new users to the computer market.
To answer the OP question, yes the macintosh operating system is much more trouble free, it is not marketing hype.
WM were you asking to quench your curiosity, or thoughts of conversion or to start a debate?

 

[Qyöt27]

Are you all aware that Macs, based on Intel chips, can also run Windows software and games quite effectively just by installing Parallels or VMWare Fusion? And for gamers, there's also Crossover Games.

So, anything you can do on a PC, you can also do on a Mac.

That's shoehorning. Parallels and VMWare do not run the programs under OS X - they run them under Windows itself, running on top of OS X (and no matter what kind of marketing gets put behind them, virtualization software always incurs a performance hit). Crossover emulates the Windows API, but has the benefit of running closer to native speed - and really, the only difference between Crossover and Wine is that Crossover has more specialized support for certain pieces of software - otherwise, they're exactly the same (and I do mean exactly; Crossover is the commercialized version of Wine). A cursory knowledge of Wine itself more than proves it will not run *anything* designed for Windows, or that what works on one setup will work everywhere (the AppDB regularly reports stats for running programs under several different distributions, on some the program could be Gold level, on others it could be rated as Garbage).

Really, if you're going to go to such extremes just to run Windows software, use Boot Camp - then there's no performance hit or compatibility weirdness.

 

[uhnoidea]

Each platform has attractive features. Macs go more toward the artist and creative fields while PCs are more general purpose. You will shell out more money for a Mac at the beginning and while you have it so be prepared. I am a PC person who is getting an old Mac Mini so I can do iPhone development. I do web programming so I am a fan of ASP.NET on the Windows platform. Linux is nice if you know what you are doing. If you are a gamer PC is about the only way to go. Macs will run Windows and Linux too but if you run it in an emulator it won't be as good as running on the hardware.

 

[JBJoe]

I have been using windows continuously since 3.1, and Linux since 0.99 but outside of a few brief unsuccessful flirtations with the mac (Powerbook 100 and Quadra 900) I had swore off Macs until about 9 months ago. I bought a Mac Mini to help my friends with iPhone apps. The iPhone apps haven't materialized but the Mac Mini replaced a windows desktop, a Linux desktop and a windows laptop for 90% of what my wife and I used them for.

In general the broad strokes of the flame war are correct: there are 3D games for the Mac, and I have a few; they perform just fine (at least within the limits of the chipset graphics accelerator) but few of the really good games are ported to the Mac. Also the mouse you're likely to be using is great for everything else, but not so great for gaming. If you're browsing the web, watching videos/movies, writing a paper, editing a photo, IM'ing (including video) online, or listening to music the Mac experience is equal to or better than windows. With one notable exception: I have not yet found a good free IRC client for Mac. All that aside, the two biggest features that have enabled the Mac Mini to replace windows machines here is: power consumption and wake time. All of my appliances get subjected to my kill-a-watt power meter at the plug. The Mac Mini draws a peak of 26 watts and idles at about 12 watts. For comparison my windows gaming rig draws 190 watts idle and 260 watts during gameplay. We never turn the mini off; we always let it go to its low-power sleep mode (~1 watt). When we want to check the web or something it takes the Mac in the neighborhood of 3 seconds from when it is awakened until we're surfing the web.

There are a few essential applications, other than games, that keep me coming back to windows. I have four kids. The life expectancy of a new DVD for the kids in this house is about a month. I have learned to make DVD backups of ALL of my movies within a few days of getting them. The tools available for this for windows are reliable and mature. Apparently they even work with Blu-Ray but I haven't gotten there yet. I am also moving towards storing the movies on a shared drive and having the Xbox 360 play them so that I'm not having to re-burn DVD-Rs when my 20 month old tries to see if the wall can play a DVD. There are a few programs that will allow the Xbox (or the Wii, or a PS3 if I had one) to play movies from a shared drive, but they all have one thing in common: they only run on Windows. I also rip my CDs to a shared drive (because the wall will not play them either) and I prefer the windows programs to do this as well.

As for Linux... Well, I really like Linux, but this has more to do with ideology than utility. Linux is free, and you can do a lot with it. Linux will never ask you for your product key. My kids computers all run Linux because I am skilled with Linux administration and I can quickly recover or rebuild their system when they kill it. But if you aren't the kind of person who likes spending hours digging to solve a problem, Linux is a poor choice. Just as an example I have 3 DVD drives, 2 SATA and 1 PATA, and 4 modern motherboards. The DVD drives work flawlessly on Ubuntu Linux when used as data drives, but you're in for a world of grief if you try and play a DVD movie on them. Not one of them can do it. I haven't figured out why yet, and I'm not the only person with this issue (as a google search reveals). However if I install Vista 64 onto these machines using an install DVD dated January 2007, they all play DVD movies through Media Player without any errors. The problem isn't that the hardware is too new, I'm not sure what it is. Some people have claimed better luck with other Linux distributions, I'm in the middle of that now. Suse Linux couldn't do it either.

As for the games issue, this may be neither here nor there in a while because game developers are increasingly abandoning the PC as a games platform. Game consoles like the Xbox 360 and Wii (I have both) are a much more lucrative market. Not that I think this is a great move (I much prefer a keyboard and mouse to a controller for FPS) but the economics are clear: A PC game that sells 1 million units is a smash success; an Xbox game that sells 1 million units has accomplished mediocrity.

All that said, my mother recently had her XP system die due to heavy infection with viruses and spyware that I couldn't manage to clean using both McAfee and Hijack This. The first thing I told her to do is change all her passwords and PIN numbers. The second thing I told her to do is replace it with a Mac Mini.

 

[Qyöt27]

The DVD drives work flawlessly on Ubuntu Linux when used as data drives, but you're in for a world of grief if you try and play a DVD movie on them. Not one of them can do it. I haven't figured out why yet, and I'm not the only person with this issue (as a google search reveals). However if I install Vista 64 onto these machines using an install DVD dated January 2007, they all play DVD movies through Media Player without any errors. The problem isn't that the hardware is too new, I'm not sure what it is. Some people have claimed better luck with other Linux distributions, I'm in the middle of that now. Suse Linux couldn't do it either.

That is undoubtedly, irrefutably, the issue of DRM licensing. The vast majority of Linux distributions, being non-commercial, don't (or outright refuse) to include commercial DVD playback software, or the open-source libdvdcss library which would facilitate it - the latter because of the fact that including it may very well be illegal in the area you live. That's the reason Ubuntu doesn't include it, for instance (it's also the reason Ubuntu doesn't include MP3 playback support by default either, although some MP3-equipped software like Audacious and mplayer are included in Universe or Multiverse, can't remember which). However, there are repositories which provide the necessary software that does enable it - Medibuntu being one example. There is always a case to be made for libdvdcss falling under the cross-compatibility provisions of the DMCA, but it's not been fleshed out very well in court.

By contrast, the reason Vista is able to play DVDs out-of-the-box, is because Microsoft paid for the proper DRM licensing to allow for it.

An important thing to note, however, is that this kind of problem only applies to DVDs that actually do include CSS. Those that don't, while in short order (storebought, anyway; home-authored discs shouldn't have any issues because those very very rarely would include CSS), will play fine. Although I should note that I have no clue if Totem - the default media player in Ubuntu - has a DVD-playback function. VLC and mplayer both do, though - and as far as mplayer goes, SMPlayer is my frontend of choice over the vanilla mplayer install.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Yeah, install libdvdcss (Just Google it to find the APT repository for it) and try watching DVDs again on the Ubuntu computers.

 

[MorphingDragon]

They're all computers...

There war finished.

 

[JBJoe]

That is undoubtedly, irrefutably, the issue of DRM licensing. The vast majority of Linux distributions, being non-commercial, don't (or outright refuse) to include commercial DVD playback software, or the open-source libdvdcss library which would facilitate it

Yeah, install libdvdcss (Just Google it to find the APT repository for it) and try watching DVDs again on the Ubuntu computers.

Last night I finally uncovered the last pieces of tribal knowledge to get DVDs playing on my kid's computer. It turns out that there is a script you have to run that comes with dvdread to get the decoder installed. Once that was done I was working on most of the systems. One drive refused to read protected discs until the region code was set. Once set everything is (finally) working.

Still, not something I would recommend for the casual computer user.

 

[pinoydude]

Mac IMO is the computer for beginners. Its like a big picture book.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Mac IMO is the computer for beginners. Its like a big picture book.

Mac OS by default is designed to be easy to use, which most people need. They don't want to take the time to learn about the ins and outs of a computer or how to use it. Everyone should have basic computer knowledge these days but that's just not how it works. There is a very similar with cars (and I'm guilty of it as well) where people don't know as much basic car maintenance as they should.

But once you crack open OS X's hood, it has a full UNIX interior ready to be explored. It can be as simple or as powerful as you want, really.

 

[MrJim]

Mac OS by default is designed to be easy to use, which most people need. They don't want to take the time to learn about the ins and outs of a computer or how to use it. Everyone should have basic computer knowledge these days but that's just not how it works. There is a very similar with cars (and I'm guilty of it as well) where people don't know as much basic car maintenance as they should.

But once you crack open OS X's hood, it has a full UNIX interior ready to be explored. It can be as simple or as powerful as you want, really.

I read about coding over at Mac Forums - Mac News and Rumor Discussion but I'm too "easy-minded" to try

 

[Trelawrence]

Macs are pretty and expensive...

To be trendy nowadays, you MUST have one....

 

[MrJim]

I got mine not because of beauty nor peer pressure, I wanted to have a machine I could just use and not wonder about virus issues~~almost 3 years now working trouble free, no virus updates, no virus scans, no issues at all-it's been, as they say, too good to be true...so far it's been bulletproof. If I get another it'll be another mini (I don't care for the integrated system of iMac and can't afford a Mac Pro and don't want a laptop). Lookin' forward to Snow Leopard...

 

[pgp_protector]

Macs are pretty and expensive...

To be trendy nowadays, you MUST have one....

Never was a trend follower.

 

[MrJim]

Never was a trend follower.

If I was a smart as you are on this stuff....

 

[Dark_Lite]

I read about coding over at Mac Forums - Mac News and Rumor Discussion but I'm too "easy-minded" to try

I hate Objective-C. Worst syntax idea ever...

 

[MrJim]

I hate Objective-C. Worst syntax idea ever...

see I'm lost already

 

[Saldaws]

more reliable/durable/more expensive = apple
more suck = microsoft