Money’s Worth

After more than a decade of hard-core devotion, mneptok is starting to question his Mac allegiance. Yep, Linux just keeps getting better as a desktop OS, and yes, you can save money on hardware, but I’m not about to give up iTunes, FinalCut, or Entourage. We pay a premium to use Macs, and IMO, we get much more than our money’s worth.

Music: The Fiery Furnaces :: Blueberry Boat

13 Replies to “Money’s Worth”

  1. Brian, so would I. But there’s just no touching it. I’ve tried every mail client for the Mac, and nothing even comes *close* to Entourage. It’s the only thing that keeps me from living a Microsoft-free existence, but until Thunderbird or some other client includes all of the task lists, calendar, exceptional address book, inter-content links, PDA sync capabilities etc. that Entourage does, I’m loving it. Never thought I’d say a Microsoft app was both graceful and functional, but Entourage is. I guess it keeps my mind open at least :)

  2. That was a good essay on the topic, and pretty much nails it. I tend to agree with Scot that there’s still nothing that can touch the Mac user interface experience. And I’ve used Linux on the desktop at work for over five years and am familiar with all sorts of desktop environments there (currently on Fedora Core 3 with KDE 3.3).

    But if GNOME, KDE, etc… are good at all the stuff you care about, then the prices for raw desktop H/W are compelling. This difference pretty much disappears when you compare quality Intel-based laptops (Compaq or IBM say) to what Apple offers, which is what I’m looking at next…

    Mnep, I was gonna post comments over on your blog, but the new user acct link was broken (at least for me running Firefox 1.0 on the Fedora system mentioned above).

  3. This difference pretty much disappears when you compare quality Intel-based laptops (Compaq or IBM say) to what Apple offers…

    I beg to differ. You can purchase an Acer Ferarri laptop with a 64-bit Athlon processor and 15″ display for about the same price as a 32-bit G4 laptop with 15″ display.

    And the Acer will probably run circles around the Mac. It has a DVD-RW which the Mac lacks, larger hard drive, more memory, more video memory, a built-in card reader etc etc.

    Acer Ferarri
    http://us.acer.com/acerpanam/page4.do?dau22.oid=5140&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=25&ctx1=US&crc=1679493060

    at Buy.com
    http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10365504&loc=101&sp=1

    Apple 15″ PowerBook
    http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=PowerBook

  4. Hmmm, I dunno… Acer ? Never got the impression that they were a top-tier laptop vendor. My first reaction would be to question how well they’re designed/built. Of course, YMMV and I’m quite picky about such stuff. We get Dell laptops at work and they don’t impress me at all. I’d never buy one with my own money :-P

    And just today, I ran across one of those random bits of Linux stuff that just drives a desktop user crazy! My new Fedora Core 3 system refuses to recognize some XFont that I added to the XWindows fontpath which I know works. There’s surely some (weird, brain-damaged, geeky) fix for this, but I can’t imagine an Apple system irritating me at this level :)

  5. Just discovered this today: In OS X, go to System Prefs, Universal Access, and click “Turn on Zooming.” Close the prefs, and hit Cmd+Opt+Plus. Whoa! Designed for people with trouble seeing, but what a great teaching aid this will be for me. Try that on Linux (not to mention Expose, Print to PDF, dynamically resizable icons, and other goodies you get with a PDF-based display system.

  6. I don’t need Exposé when I have Gnome’s multiple virtual desktops. Something BeOS had. Apple, why isn’t this in OSX as-shipped? Why the need for a thrid-party utility for this basic functionality?

  7. Virtual desktops vs. Expose… kind of apples and oranges, no? I mean, they both help you organize your work, but I don’t really miss virtual desktops.

    Bleh… we could go on for days talking about relative merits of hardware and OSes… I feel burned out from all of that. Use what makes you happy.

  8. Use what makes you happy.

    Indeed. However, the point I was really trying to make (perhaps not very clearly) is that Linux on the desktop still suffers from annoyances that shouldn’t be there, requiring too-clever, “geeky” solutions for things that should just work.

    If I’m going to geek-out over some computer issue, I want it to be a fun, interesting thing – not something like getting a font to work.

    Of course, this discussion is like debating dark chocolate vs. milk chocolate. We could be running Windows instead (which is more like lima beans ;)

  9. Hey! I cook lima beans every night for my cockatiels!

    Let’s call Windows what it is. “Dark chocolate versus milk chocolate versus a stream of buffalo effluvium.”

    :)

  10. I’ve been using linux for about a year now…i love it. Sure i’ve had to give up Photoshop…but I use GIMP, and dont mind it at all!

    The main problem i have with the mac is the price. For you guys in the States and UK (and any other 1st world country) macs are pretty cheap…here in New Zealand you have to mortgage your soul just to afford the down-payment. That is the only reason i dont change to mac…the price…<sigh />

    Still very keen to see how quickly linux GUIs catch up to Mac.

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