[aklug] Re: Mac laptops and reliability

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 02:00:17PM -0800, Tim Gibney wrote:
> For those who attend the LUG at Anchorage, I am the one cursing Toshiba and
> anything Ubuntu on it.
> Well my misery is over, may the horrible atrocity known as my Toshiba laptop
> rest in peace ... or I should say piece. :-)~
>
> My wife has a malfunctioning Toshiba as well that is a very expensive gaming
> laptop that works well as long as you do not run games??

Having repaired countless laptops over the years, Toshiba is one of those
names that gives me cold sweats at night. We also had one, which was given
to us when it was 3 months old by the owner who could not get support to
prevent the constant lockups and crashes. The first thing I did was write
zeroes to the drive, then install Slackware. That solved the problems. To
have a dual boot I reinstalled with a WinXP Home CD, not the Toshiba
recovery CD, which installs a lot of useless Toshiba apps. The laptop ran
okay for what it was, a Toshiba hunk a junk. ;)

> I am applying for the masters in computer science with the University of
> Alaska Fairbanks. I will need a new machine if I get in and my wife is very
> cynical to the idea of wasting money again on yet another laptop or desktop.
> I am thinking of getting a Mac. A true Unix OS that has well supported
> hardware and great visual editing tools if I want to start my web business.
> How reliable are powerbooks? Are they worth 2x the cost? Should I just buy a
> desktop like an iMac?

Your wife is gun shy because of the poor Toshiba products. Wait until you
pay extravagant fees for the Mac, then buy Windows and it's apps in
addition, then install Linux ... curse the sleepless nights! ;)

Seems that compatibility issues might be the big 'gotcha' for running Mac
software, and it's not a true Unix OS, either. (Has the Vim vs. Emacs
thread run it's course so we can start a Unix clone vs. Linux vs. Unix
one?)

And yes, why pay 2x the cost plus more to get the thing to do what a PC
would do in the first place? If you want a laptop, but a ThinkPad. They
have a long track record of being very reliable, their Linux support is
great, and you'll get the obligatory Windows OS that your school chums and
profs will require you to use anyway. You get a good, reliable, well
supported and well built ThinkPad and shrink the Win7 (don't buy another
Win OS) partition, install Linux, and be done with it. Mac has icons and
graphics that are more eye appealing, but the base software that you use
to do your work is what's important, not eye candy.

Tools? Software is written for all platforms ... web pages can be written
in Vim, or even notepad if you want no syntax highlighting. In the area of
tools (meaning apps) maybe consider the cross-platform compatibility.
Every guy I know personally who has a Mac installs Windows and Linux.
Linux for something worthwhile to do work with, Windows for lack of
compatibility with Mac software. The programmers I know who have Macs only
add Linux, not Windoze.

> How is Linux support in bootcamp? Yes they can boot Linux but can Linux
> support the EFI features such as temperature control fans and CPU throttling
> that are mac specific?

Check out some HCL lists, TuxMobile, and <Linux> Google for the specific
model you're considering.
 
> Thanks
>
> Tim Gibney

Just my 2c, but the business practices of Apple are as wicked as those of
Microsoft ... the only product of either company we've bought in this
decade came pre-installed (Windoze), except for the iPhone.

The problem for us is always the same ... we require some apps which are
of such superior quality to anything open source that we must have one of
the proprietary systems they're written for to use them.

Bruce Hill

-- 
May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the
lesson afterward. But properly learned, the lesson forever changes
the man."
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