Speaking of rigs....lets start the great debate!

[waterrat]

Mac or PC?

me?: macmacmacmacmacmacmacmacmac :D

[DavidL]

Mac! There isn't much to debate. :)

[waterrat]

yes I have to agree...PC (esp vista) has a hard time keeping up these days ;)

[bricolage]

I was always a Mac person, but had to swap for work apps. But now I'm happy to say I'm back in the glorious world of Mac.

[waterrat]

Fusion/Parallels is wonderful is it not!?

[normbear]

I think Mac. The Macs now seem to be able to emulate a PC no problem (and the software that allows them to do that seems readily available and popular) but can a pC emulate a Mac easily? I haven't seen anyone try to do that.

[waterrat]

Well it isn't so much emulation now...cause they are all Intel inside....more to the point that there are some PC enthusiasts who have hacked the MacOS so that it will run on an Intel based system (no AMD here) but drivers and libraries can be a problem...cause there is a verification system in the installer that tries to make sure it is running on mac hardware.

So not really a matter of if...but....why ;)

[d_fiant]

I'm a PC man but i use non-commercial software...yes, I love Linux and I have played around with several Linux OS's before settling on Ubuntu. I am using the pre-release version of Ubuntu 8.04 at the moment and doing everything that I could do (and wished I could but didn't want to pay for software) with Windows.

In my opinion, no one should have to pay the extortionate prices for Windows or Leopard when you can get a Linux OS for free that is less CPU and RAM intensive. YES, linux takes a bit of tweaking, but most things JUST work.

[waterrat]

Ubuntu is great..used to run my webserver on that, then my PS3 now I am waiting for a better release of YellowDog to try esp. seeing as grafx aren't optimised on it yet...sony have kind of blocked off the best bits of the architecture.

<MacFanBoy>
Mind you d_fiant I have to pick a bone with you :P how can you possibly put extoritive prices in the same sentence as windows and OSX when a copy of vista ultimate full retail will set you back 700$! and a copy of Leopard at most $158 (or $249 which gives you 5 licences)

Just setting the record str8 ;)
</MacFanBoy>

[d_fiant]

<MacFanBoy>
Mind you d_fiant I have to pick a bone with you :P how can you possibly put extoritive prices in the same sentence as windows and OSX when a copy of vista ultimate full retail will set you back 700$! and a copy of Leopard at most $158 (or $249 which gives you 5 licences)

A DVD or a CD with music or a movie is only about $30, why don't musicians and actors get more for their creativity.

Oh! and Linux is mostly free

[waterrat]

Yes you can't beat an OS that is free as in beer ;) ...and OMG did you know that of all the money the RIAA has recouped for "piracy" none of it has gone to the artists involved?

Go figure

I think it is the scale of sales...a new OS might sell hundreds of thousands of copies...but the latest hollywood blockbuster potentially could sell millions which is why the price is lower...also hollywood would offset losses from one movie by the profits of another...how many different titles does Warner Bros sell and of those potentially how many would sell a hundred thousand copies or more? How many OS's does Apple sell? (I won't use Microsoft as an example cause I don't know how many flavours of Windows there are anymore ;) .

I just try to buy a new system every new release of OSX ;)

[d_fiant]

I just try to buy a new system every new release of OSX ;)

I just started using Ubuntu in November, and on my old rig (Athlon 64x2 4600+ on Asus (something or another) socket 939, 2GB 400DDR DC Radeon X300, 250gb Sata HDD) and it just worked. So when I built this new rig (Athlon 64x2 6000+, Asus M2A (to Upgrade to a 'stable' Phenom next year), Radeon 2600 pro, 2gb DDR2 1066mHz, 1.25tb Sata hdd) I whacked on Ubuntu 7.10 but it didn't like the GPU and wouldn't display 1680x1050 on my LCD, so I gave the yet to be released Ubuntu 8.04 a go...and what do you know...worked out of the box.

On a side note, I have vista installed on my older rig so I can use iTunes and my laptop came with Vista on it.

I'm not a windows hater, but I would prefer to use something that I think is good value for money...and you can't get better value than $0 for an OS that does 95% of what Windows does, and does it quicker, with less system resources used, CPU runs cooler (31oC average when surfing the net, but under load it goes upto 46oC) , has great community support....and I can download the updates directly from my ISP without it counting toward my monthy download quota...AND I don't need a firewall or any anti-virus software to slow down my system.

I wish more people would use Linux OSs, maybe then MS and Apple would feel the pinch and make their OSs a bit more accessable, be a bit more serious about security rather than those annoying system pop-ups, because Windows is not a bad OS, it is just over priced...can't comment on Leopard because I have never used it.

[Proton69]

Well, I've got nothing against Macs, except I haven't been able to afford one so far, so I'm in the PC camp by default, but let's put a real OS on it, like Linux, or one of the BSDs. I've been a Linux geek for 13 years, and have enjoyed every minute of it. :D

[lostinthearc]

I've been running Debian/unstable for the last few years. It's the only distro i like. You can upgrade individual packages or just apt-get distupgrade the whole system over the net all for free. Whenever anything breaks, i can fix absolutely anything. None of this hide-behind-a-gui stuff; i just configure everything with vi/vim and raw text files. I've never had to do a system re-install ever since i first put it on:)

[Proton69]

I normally use something with Red Hat ancestry. That's something of a historical accident, determined by software requirements over the years, then familiarity. Currently the Red Hat derivative of choice is CentOS. And yes, most of the boxes I play with are remote to me, and the interface is good old bash over SSH. Only one box I regularly use a GUI on, which is a workstation. Web pages just don't render as well these days under Lynx... ;)

Especially when one is trying to watch YouTube videos or look at "interesting" pics! :-D

[harker]

Well I am a PC guy. Macs look hot, but I know how to find what I want on PC. PC's ar cheaper also.

One day my geeky curiosity will win and I will try a Mac. Would never tell the guys at work this though. I work in IT and this is a debate we have ALL THE TIME. I tend to be on the PC side.

I have run Linux before, but find it difficult sometimes especially if oyu have new hardware. Ran a MythTV box for nearly 6 months, but it was hacky at best. Made the mistake of buying a new TV card rather than a second hand one. LinuxTV V4L drivers are really hacky.

So I am going back to building a windows based media centre. I feel dirty about it all, but until real drivers start appearing for linux media related devices, I will stick with Windows.

[Detrimentalist]

macs or pcs.

How about Sparc or MIPS. or VAXen :'( so sad that sgi is pretty much dead.

anyway I'm a unix user, so Mac OS X is nice for me on a hacking level, otherwise all sorts of unix boxes here, runing IRIX, Debian or Solaris 10.

Lots of fun.

~ ~