The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: brainfaceAs far as how it is:
no viruses*, no spyware. which is AMAZING.
everything you can run you can run for free. also great.
I've found Ubuntu Linux tends to be easier than windows when things are working. when things don't work it's... much more exciting.
Also, no game except neverwinter nights, unreal tournament, or chess will work ;)

Hmm, I was under the impression that it ran windows stuff fine... a black mark, nothing more. I'm not terribly familiar with dual-booting, and if I go that route I would have to get vista anyway for the games (my beaten and battered XP still thinks it's sitting on an Emachines... poor thing.)...

QuoteHmm, I was under the impression that it ran windows stuff fine... a black mark, nothing more.

(my beaten and battered XP still thinks it's sitting on an Emachines... poor thing.)[/quote]
I'd really recommend just trying to get xp running from the install cd. You might not be as cheap as me though.

I have Win2K Pro at home, WinXP on my laptop, Mac OSX on my work laptop.

Even as long as I've had my Win2K machine, it runs like a champ. No problems, even with all the funky development work I do. Our laptop runs all right, except it tends to overheat. Just getting old I guess.

Mac OSX is great, with the Mac look and Darwin/BSD under the covers. A great workhorse, reliable as hell. But I've still managed to crash it a couple of times. The downside to Mac is just that everytime there's an OS upgrade, you get pinched. Upgrade your OS, and some of your existing software may not work. Don't, and you won't be able to use any of the new stuff. If you get a Mac, make sure you know what you're going to use it for, get everything you need, and then don't touch it. Not really the best platform if you like to pick up the latest game every few months.

If you are thinking about Vista, I'd take a look at this before you buy: Vista content protection. The executive executive summary: "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history."

Basically, MS wants to become the platform for high definition media - so they are sucking up to the Hollywood and music industries. To make them happy, there's an interlocking system of validity checks to ensure that, whenever high def audio (SACD) or video (Bluray) is present, any non-approved devices will be either shut down or degraded. To top it off, every 30 milliseconds (30 times a second) the content protection module wakes up to make sure nothing has been added since the last time. This is probably a big part of why you need such a monster box to even run Vista.

Whether all this will even work is an open question. Another quote:

QuoteSo far alongside a great many reports of people being unable to play any HD content at all I've received one report of someone who could play back HD- DVDs. Equipment used was an XBox360 (functioning as the HD-DVD player), an nVidia 8800GTX with HDCP (a top-of-the-line graphics card currently selling for around $600), and a Westinghouse 37w3 with HDCP on the DVI input (a 37" LCD display currently selling for around $1,200.

Anyway, I'm not going to be getting Vista any time soon. Probably my next box will be Linux or Mac OSX.

Q: What is the best flavor of Linux for a semi-technically oriented guy who doesn't really want to learn to be a sysadm?

Another Q: Anyone know of decent home finance software not-for-Windows? We use Quicken, but that computer is the one that will soon need replacing, and I'd rather not have to buy Vista just for that.

I've never had any of these upgrade problems with mine. Maybe I just don't use those programs. Has anyone run mac osx/linux/windows on one comp?

In my experience, windows is better for games, and macs are better for work.  However, I am just a casual computer user and have never customized my box at all save to change desktop appearance and stuff.

Quote from: Brother Howitzer of Reasoned DiscussionIn my experience, windows is better for games, and macs are better for work.

That's exactly how i use linux. every project i do in ubuntu, while my winxp partition is pretty much an xbox.

In my house we have 1 PC and one Mac... So I think I'm gonna be able to give a good comment on them.

Personally, I prefer the PC, but I think in the end it's because I'm more used to it. There are several things people have said in this thread that I'd like to address. For instance, viruses and spyware... That is true, I've never heard of a Mac get one, but with the protection I've got on my PC, I never get one either, and I don't feel it's slowing it. This works two ways, actually, like yes... Viruses are made for PCs, but so many other things are made for PCs as well that I don't see as much for Macs (Like skins). At first, I hated the fact Mac didn't have a right-click, but my mother (Who is the one that uses the Mac) eventually changed it. Finally, crashes... Once I changed to XP a long time ago, I never really got them anymore... so I don't think that's an issue.

Now, from what I've heard from both my parents (Which are both graphic designers), my mother prefers Mac over PC because it's much easier for her to use Photoshop and QuarkXpress or whatever she uses. Don't ask me why... I don't understand her, lol... Also, supposedly, Mac was designed in its architecture to use vectors in a more efficient way than a Mac, but I don't really see much change.

In the end, if you had to choose from one or the other, I'd say that you should go with the one that you're used to. I'm on the Mac right now and I'd change to the PC if someone wasn't there. I can use the Mac but I'm so used to a PC (And like it so much) that I just wouldn't want to work any other way. For instance, hot keys... I use them a lot on the PC, and many of them are different from Mac ones... Like the windows button + D minimizes everything, right? I -just- found out that F3 does the same thing in Mac, but before that, DAMN, I'm so used to that feature that living without it just blows, lol... So many little things like that can affect how much you like or dislike a system... so that's why I say go with what you know...

Now, choosing between Linux or Windows... I've been in 2 courses in college where I've had to use Linux/Unix... The first one was to work on Solaris computers.. which I hated <_<... But the second one was a course for networking but only using Linux.. and I must say that I loved it (Maybe this guy was just a better teacher, I dunno). In many ways, I prefer Linux if I knew I was going to work with such things, I really like it's simplicity and flexibility (Plus being root makes you feel like a God :P, ok, maybe not). However, aside from such things that really benefit from Linux' simplicity, I prefer Windows for everything else... I've tried several versions of Linux (Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc), but I didn't really like how if you want something done right you have to work in the Terminal. As I said, for networking matters, this is really great... but what I do regularly, I just prefer a more 'visual' environment which I didn't feel I got using any of those versions of Linux.

In the end however, I think that going with what you're used to is probably the best thing... When you use Linux over Windows or Mac over PC (At least in my case) you just feel as if you are missing things that you can only get in the PC, even if it's just that ease of use.

Hmm, wireless is going to be important to me, since I've got a Linksys 802.11b/g router at home. I'm mostly looking at a replacement for my older box, so any hints on what to buy to avoid issues would be handy. I could salvage the Linksys wireless card from it, but that's about it.

This is a hardware issue more than a software issue.  Mac OS X is a much superior operating system in pretty much every respect.

With that out of the way, let's talk hardware.

Personal computer hardware is becoming homogeneous pretty quick.  Everything runs on X86 now.  It mostly comes down to individual parts and motherboard chips, with individual performance differences between what runs with macs and what runs with PCs being pretty small.

The main point of interest is cost.  Apple hardware is much, much more expensive for the power you get than "PC" hardware.  You can build a very high-quality PC for about $800, or order a very high-quality Apple for a little over twice as much.  Hardware monopoly is part of Jobs' business model, so don't expect that to change any time soon.

Since you can run Windows on any new (Intel) mac, you should buy an Apple if you can afford it.  You should buy a PC if you can't.

Such is my 2Ã,¢.

QuoteHmm, wireless is going to be important to me, since I've got a Linksys 802.11b/g router at home. I'm mostly looking at a replacement for my older box, so any hints on what to buy to avoid issues would be handy. I could salvage the Linksys wireless card from it, but that's about it.

think[/i] it's specific brands of wireless that have problems. Googlesearch indicates that linksys may be one of those brands depending on the card, but the article was out of date. Daggerhart's the one that's had to deal with it, i'll try to ask him about it.

Quote from: brainface

Quote(my beaten and battered XP still thinks it's sitting on an Emachines... poor thing.)

I did run it from the install CD, it was packaged with the Emachines, and supposedly won't(HA) work with anything else.

Quote from: Hellraiser...

In the end, if you had to choose from one or the other, I'd say that you should go with the one that you're used to.

...

In the end however, I think that going with what you're used to is probably the best thing...

hear here. i agree wholeheartedly. i personally prefer PC's with windows (any version will do, but this machine is running 2k), but it's because of small things like shortcuts, hotkeys, appearance (the standard apple look kinda scares me, to be honest... i don't know if i could take it seriously).... stuff like that.

that said, i broke my teeth (figuratively speaking) on a IIe...

Quote from: snakefingIf you are thinking about Vista, I'd take a look at this before you buy: Vista content protection. The executive executive summary: "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history."

Basically, MS wants to become the platform for high definition media - so they are sucking up to the Hollywood and music industries. To make them happy, there's an interlocking system of validity checks to ensure that, whenever high def audio (SACD) or video (Bluray) is present, any non-approved devices will be either shut down or degraded. To top it off, every 30 milliseconds (30 times a second) the content protection module wakes up to make sure nothing has been added since the last time. This is probably a big part of why you need such a monster box to even run Vista.

that article scared the crap outta me, to be honest.

I heard rumors that macs werent as customizeable as pc's. while it may not be as varied, you can still do some awesome stuff.

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Quote from: So-KeherI heard rumors that macs werent as customizeable as pc's. while it may not be as varied, you can still do some awesome stuff.

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wrong kind of customization, but beautiful nonetheless. I might even pull out that first look for my rebuild...