Anybody running Linux?

Give the same situation I would run XP in virtualbox. It's how I run my DDL installation, since you can only relicense DDL 3 times and I change hardware more than that.

 

I run Win7 in a Parallels VM on my Macbook Air for Eclipse logs and anything else that's Windows only. So a +1 on a virtual machine strategy.

I quit bothering with Linux distributions. Too fiddly for my taste. I got tired of installing stuff that required a lengthy search for all the supporting software modules that also wouldn't work for some reason I had to figure out. Wine is a pita all on it's own.

Put an SSD in that old Macbook and you'll be surprised all over again. My previous laptop was a 2008 MBP. Adding a solid state drive made it brand new all over again. Say what you want about Apple, they do make a fine laptop.

 

AMD processors have always lagged behind Intel on most everyday computing tasks. Their strength is in floating point operations, which typically support graphics intensive stuff like gaming.

Processor speed isn't the bottleneck in most computers any more - it's the data busses choking things down now. Mainly the relatively slow read/write speeds on mechanical hard drives and slow rates on USB 2.0 or earlier.

ETA: The strength of Apple hardware is the thing everyone loves to complain about. Proprietary, standard construction. The good part is that they use better than average parts carefully integrated. The main reason I like Apple hardware (computers especially) is that they tend to just work. Never the best in class performance-wise, but generally rock solid reliable.

My 2008 MBP finally expired with a motherboard fault after three years of frequent travel with hundreds of trips through TSA airport security bins. I had upgraded to a SSD, and later had to replace the cooling fans. Oddly, it died after a couple months at home running stationary on my desk. As careful as I am, I feel the motherboard failure was probably a product of me disturbing it's guts changing drives and fans over the years more than anything else.

 

I had a dual boot PC before I got a Microsoft Surface RT. it wasn't pretty, simply put because 250GB's is a huge downgrade from 1TB. it was sluggish, to say the least(all this because I needed a computer for school, and was too lazy to register my windows pc)

 

linux has indeed come a long way and is a lot more user friendly today for those people out there who dont know how to even use it. I remember back when I first started using linux there was no one click install....

I havent used linux in a couple years but I have thought about setting up a dual boot with my laptop and installing back track to get me some wifi in places...


when you tried installing the snow leopard what happened?

 

I'm currently a fan of the Linux Mint distribution. Used most of the majors and a few of the minors, but this is the one I'm on currently. Of course, I've got to echo RedForeman's feedback on Apple in general. I've had a few, and only had age related problems with them. Currently on a '12 MacBook Pro, finally had to give up on my TiBook after the display hinges cracked.

 

I want to get a mac but got more important things to pay for, wife also wants to get a bigger house soon and an suv...

I have an older laptop I bought in 2011 but it still runs strong, 17inch screen, 4gb ram, 500gb hdd, blu ray with hdmi out and its an AMD. I have always been a fan of AMD since the beginning, I did just replace my battery this past week since the other died and as long as it keeps running for me I wont be buying anything else for another year or so.

 

I use a lot of different flavors of linux. I am using on this box ubutu with KDE on top of the OS. It isn't hard to install now, actually the last install I did was a lot easier than the latest windows install I did.

About apple, there is a lot of negative over the development of software for ios and OS X, one of the things I do feel they should have been treated like Microsoft and the issue of forced bundling. I won't get into the way they have their marketing and sales contracts setup, it is really closed market.

However their hardware is no longer proprietary, they moved form risc to intel and if one is inclined to build a hackitosh, it isn't hard.