Little problem with Macs though; hard to, Ahem,
tweek them to do certain things.
The`re very handy (If you can afford them) to do all sorts of audio and video operations. But if you`re someone like myself, a Mac is useless for what you`re using a computer for. The things I do don`t require a GUI (Graphics User Interface... sorry for the geek talk! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)\
Try running a solely Linux based system;
Hi Tyger,
I run (along with the other 7 members of my team) about 220 linux hosts and 20-30 solaris hosts.
We support free, proprietary and bespoke applications software/services on our unix hosts.
I don't require a GUI to do most of this (though running the LDAP clusters and LDAP proxies is sometimes easier with the confg gui).
FYI Macs have a command line.
/Applications/Utilities/Terminal
It is in fact nicer than most xterms (e.g. nice drag and drop).
The default shell on OSX, like most linuxes, is bash.
Other shells are available by default:
L1A1% ls /bin/*sh*
/bin/bash /bin/ksh /bin/tcsh /bin/zsh-4.3.4
/bin/csh /bin/sh /bin/zsh
L1A1%
The standard sorts of tools that most sys admins use are installed by default out of the box, e.g. vim,ssh, scp, dig, nslookup, traceroute, X11 server (just in case you do need to run some GUI stuff other then OSX) and the other usual suspects are all included. An RDP client can be downloaded for free from MS if you are unfortunate enough (as I am) to need to tweak the occasional windows box.
Lots of IDEs are available to if your a programmer.
There are not many bits of posix/unix software that can't be compiled on a mac, Macs being posix compliant.
I can't think of many other roles which require command line tools as the preferred/most often used tools.
As for tweaking, OSX is not as tweakable as most linux GUIs, however it is at least as tweakable as a windows, and the non GUI parts are just as tweakable as any other unix. Many of the GUI tweaks people from other platforms want are often because they are not aware of the OSX paradigm or the OSX equivalent features.
I.e. they don't know the Mac features, or they really want Windows.
The thing is that many Unix sys admins have not taken the time to learn the OSX specific command line tools for configing OSX and config locations/methods so they think OSX is not tweakable.
The hardware is somewhat less tweakable, but for normal people doing normal stuff including sys adminning and programming.
The shortcomings uyou point out about hardware tweaking are in fact true for all platforms except the PC.
Overclocking Sun boxes, getting new video cards to RS6000s is not easy - though it is easier on Macs than for any other platform , except the PC.
So if your thing is hardware tweaking (as opposed to OS tweaking), then yeah the PC is definately superior there are lots of bits of hardware available and it is cheap to replace if you break it. Same in economy/absolute hardware cost. PCs are cheaper to buy (but not necesarily run or maintain), at least in the low end.
Same with gaming. The PC is better gaming platform than a Mac, Sunbox, HPUX box, RS6000 etc etc.
However for normal people doing normal stuff, e.g. reading mail, surfing the web, word proccesing, spreadhseets, chat, pohtom editing, making videos, mixing audio the PC is not really superior and in some areas is noticably inferior under either linux or windows.
Same for people who are non-windows sys admins or programmers (again as you alluded to in your first post).
The good thing about a Macs for unix people I which is what I think you alluded to in your first post) in a windows world (which is where most of us live) is that most of the world uses windows and MS Office and witha Mac you can read the Office docs that people probably sends you, joins the OCS chats and still do all of your command line work.
Exchange compatability is also supported, via both Apple mail and MS Entourage, though I've not tried it, thank god we (the unix team) still run mail at my work!
In addition to that you have a GUI that for the most part is orders of magnitudes better than any of the the Unix or windows GUI environments in most respects, especially if you just want to do some work.
You wont have driver problems, multi monitor is just a matter of plugging in the next monitor and spotlight rocks for local search.
A *LOT* of unix professionals who have a choice are using Macs as their personal workstations/laptops now for precisely the reasons above.
i.e a unix wth a decent GUI and MS Office/OCS/Exchange and all the tools you need to administer unix hosts.
Also the cost of Macs is not that expensive when compared with similar wintel boxes, e.g. Lenovo or HP business class (as opposed to consumer class which are not well supported for more than 12-18 months) boxen. I.e. if you want a PC that is commercially supportable (e.g. you don't have to create a new OS image every few months for due to new hardware) then you need to pay similar prices to a mac.
Apologies for geeking out extra hard core, but there were a number of areas you touched on where I suspect a little info might help you out.
