Mac VS PC

[Gatekeeper]

I *luv* my hockey-puck one-button mouse.

[Lord_Davinator]

Are you sure its jsut not the case... I admit they are sexy...

[Rasbelin]

Okay, Tass, you asked for action. Let the war begin.

Why is the PC better in comparsion to the Mac?

Hardware

The new iMacs and Power Macs might looks cute, but they're horrible if you want to change your hardware configuration. However they don't seem to be designed for that as they're as compact as possible (the iMac productline). Also the availability of hardware is less good than for the PC as there's basically one choice for graphics accelerators; ATI. And the models available are old compared to what you can get for a PC. The same applies for sound devices. You're stuck with some integrated sound chipsets. Also one a mouse with one button is less versatile as ones used with PCs; the secondary button used with a PC gives more options as you can right-click on objects, unlike with the Mac. I've ones tried to use an iMac for 1 hour and it was a pain in the azz as you could only use one button. Not to mention the lack of the scrolling wheel. I was unable to surf on Poly as the browser installed was too old to utilise the website and installing Mozilla didn't succeed as there was no clear way to remove the old version of Netscape. However that's on the side of the real issue; hardware.

Software

Limited software available for Macs. There's clearly more programs available for Windows on PCs and there's also many alternative OS solutions available for Macs. One of the biggest cons is the lack of games and new games come first to the PC and reach the Mac with delay. Also limited availablity of patches that are released for PC games as not all come available to the Mac port (despite the bugs exist there too). The con of old GPUs is also affecting the software; especially gamers.

Now why would I get a Mac? Answer that question and I might concider it. But notice that I want to be able to do about the same things than with a PC (I exclude Windows specific features as that would be too much asked).

[CapitanGarlic]

I was recently surrounded by Mac users, and I got in a debate. Pretty much the biggest argument they held up was unix Vs. win32, with unix being superior in every way. Also (since four of them had iBooks), I noticed that all of them had Logitech 2-button scroll wheel mouses (that's the plural term, I swear), so the mouse argument doesn't hold water.

Note: I can't stand macs.

[Rasbelin]

Yes, indeed, the mouse arguement isn't that good, but I'm pointing out how the standard Mac mouse is like. It's awful.

BTW, by using a mouse familiar from PCs they prove that the mice used with PCs are better.

[Gatekeeper]

Ras ...

Tsk, tsk. You couldn't figure out how to remove the old version of Netscape off the iMac? Two steps:

1. Remove the actual program and its from whatever main folder its stored in. Move to trash. Empty. Voila, gone!

2. Go into Sherlock, type "Netscape" and it will list any bits and pieces of the program that might have escaped your notice. Move these into trash and empty.

That's how I do it, anyway, and I generally don't have any problems. (Well, except I deleted an extension I needed for a certain program )

Gatekeeper

[Henrik]

Thought I'd just stop by and say: Macs rule

[Jack_www]

Well if macs had more game on it and games for mac came out same time as pc i would get a mac, but they dont, so I have a pc now. I use to have a mac and I like it a lot.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Bah... you will always be oppressed by your two-party system if people don't start voting for a (the?) third candidate!

[Rasbelin]

That 3rd choice could be the new game console that will be using Linux.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Thrawn05
Believe or not, the majority of linux users and programmers (like the ones at my college) DON'T want to see Linux go mainstream, like Red hat or Lindows. To them, it's a hobby, like toy models.

Hm, I don't think the people at your college are going to be representative of the majority of Linux users and programmers.

Originally posted by Thrawn05
Another reason is that I laugh when I read these sig banners that read "Windows Free" or somthing to that effect, because believe it or not, Linux has become a shadow of Windows that it was suppose to replace.

In what sense? A GUI? X-Windows predates MS Windows. Ease of use? This is just a general trend, besides, Macs got it before Windwos. What else?

Originally posted by Thrawn05
I predict that within a few years, Linux would be more Windows then Windows itself, but there will need to a be a single Linux standard in order for this to work, or else making programs will be a total pain.... not to mention shopping for them.

Hm, there's only one Linux - unlike Windows which has several codebases - what you get on one distro is the same Linux as what you get on another.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Hm, there's only one Linux - unlike Windows which has several codebases - what you get on one distro is the same Linux as what you get on another.

Um, yeah. Discounting filesystem differences, package managers, all distro-specific software (including proprietary software that tends to be made available for RedHat only) and custom kernels, that is. Oh, and did I mention library version incompatibilities?

[Urban Ranger]

You can have different filesystems for Linux, and package manager is pretty much a non-issue. I am ignoring distro-specific stuff because that won't make a difference for application developers, and custom kernels of what?

[Ari Rahikkala]

(note: as you might notice, I'm talking about closed-source software here - most of the things I'll mention are not really a problem for open-source)

You can have different filesystems for Linux

I meant filesystems as in non-FHS hierarchies, not different back-ends behing VFS. For example, /opt seems to be handled differently in almost every distro. Quick, where would Oracle go in whatever distro you're using? /opt? In its own directory under /usr (which is specifically prohibited by FHS)? Under /usr like any other package? /usr/local? /usr/lib? (Phoenix, at least on my system, installs itself under its own directory in /usr/lib - FHS-incompatible behaviour again)

package manager is pretty much a non-issue

Sure, LSB endorses RPM and everybody uses it. Too bad RPM happens to be one of the worst package managers I've ever had to fortune to stop using. You can be pretty sure that if you make a piece of software available only in RH8/RH7.2 RPM you will leave a lot of users jumping through hoops to install the software. Porting it to five different RPM styles (for different glibc versions/filesystem hierarchies), .deb and .tgz, on the other hand, is work done simply because we can't standardise on a good package manager.

custom kernels of what

I once tried to compile a kernel for my friend (a SuSE user at the time) on a Debian box. I can remember his wondering why he suddenly saw a whole lot of obscure error messages on boot-up. The kernel's capabilities affect userland a lot, and you can't really plan for every different kernel people will use. The situation is even worse for driver developers - the module interface of the kernel is in a constant state of flux, and it's no wonder binary-only modules are known to have a tendency to cause problems to users who aren't using the vanilla kernel from kernel.org,

[JohnT]

God, Linux sounds just so much more user friendly than Windows. Where do I sign up?

Anyway, PC's are better because you don't have Linux/Windows debates with Crapples.