Anyone own a Mac Mini?

[Ainkor]

I have a flawlessly working hackintosh install on my desktop too. It was a fun little side project. As far as licensing is concerned, I just slapped an Apple sticker on the front and as far as I am concerned, my legally purchased OSX disk is running on Apple branded hardware :P

I agree on the Linux side though, Much easier and many less headaches

[Roo]

Hey this is a nice discussion on the ongoing Red Sox/Yankees... er I mean Mac/PC debate. Seriously, way to keep it cordial fellas. Here's my two cents, with the disclaimer that I've been a Mac user since the Apple II and I loathe my PCs with Windows Vista and W7 at work. I use computers at home for very simple things. Internet, music, photos, composing documents, spreadsheets, calendars... all those things that most computers are adequately equipped with out of the box, Mac or PC. So take the following with the understanding that I do not tinker, design, customize, or fix anything, nor do I want to. In March I bought a 10" Macbook Pro for $1200 to replace a very old desktop iMac. It is my sole computer. The idea of a "cheap and disposable" laptop, as LX mentioned, is foreign to me. As long as I don't break the screen, I intend for this macbook to last as long as I want it to. If I keep it for 5 years, that's $20 a month. Hardly expensive. It requires absolutely zero maintenance, upkeep, patience, tinkering, technical ability, or virus protection. I don't even know what a virus does to a computer, because I've always used macs. So there you have it. I say get the Mac Mini if $700 is the extent of your budget, but my real advice would be to get a macbook. No components required, it's portable, functional, and it's a beautiful, reliable machine.

[Mawdryn]

It requires absolutely zero maintenance, upkeep, patience, tinkering, technical ability, or virus protection. I don't even know what a virus does to a computer...

Basically sounds exactly like my HP, and like the Dell before it. I only replaced the Dell because I wanted new features, and I'm sure the HP will meet the same fate eventually (though it has lasted 4 years without a hitch).

I think we're arguing style, not substance here (with obvious caveats to folks using Macs for design function, etc)...

[sgreger1]

Ex PC fanboi but my Mac products just last longer. Every PC laptop i've had or my family has had starts having problems like being slow or overheating or having the keyboard break after the first year but my Macs never die and always stay fast. It's out of the box quality, like you get with buying a mercedes. It costs a little more (a lot more in some cases) but imo is worth it if you've got it.

[risurfer]

I'm a supporter of the free option too.
If you're a windows user, you've got a learning curve ahead if you go to a, windows 7, b, mac, c, linux.
Option C doesn't require new hardware & will speed things up quite substantially.
sticking another piece of ram into the computer would be good, and is no harder than installing a fan. several memory websites can tell you exactly what to order.
Install xubuntu or ubuntu, and you'll be cruising along for free, and you'll have an office-equivalent. also free. Should eliminate all speed issues.

I have an old laptop from about '03, which runs xubuntu fine for days on end. It doesn't love watching high res youtube videos, but it's ok with the 240 rate. It's also lower end than your current desktop, by a bit.

Don't like it? You've lost a few hours to learning the OS, but no $$ except possibly some on ram.

[ProudMarineDad]

Hey this is a nice discussion on the ongoing Red Sox/Yankees... er I mean Mac/PC debate. Seriously, way to keep it cordial fellas.

I was hesitant to start this thread because I know how passionate folks can be about stuff so I am very appreciative of the civilized responses from both sides.

I had never thought of Linux and might try it before buying a new computer. Just am a little leary of the open ended part of it. Can I install it and use it without removing my Windows XP to see if it helps my performance?

On the Mac side, I do like the Mac App store. The kid at the local Apple store said I could buy just the spreadsheet portion for $20. I have no need for the power point and whatever the other part is.

Please keep the posts coming because if I do decide to get a new computer, I might be waiting until the first week in August because my home state of SC has a back to school tax free weekend. That would save me the .06 sales tax.

Thanks again for all the very informative posts.

[deadohsky]

With your listed tasks/ uses for computing, i'd be inclined to say just upgrade your current PC. It may seem intimidating, but it's actually very simple. I have/ had an HP Pavilion A6000n. I still have the stock motherboard and CPU. I've slowly been upgrading it. I got a dedicated graphics card, went from 1GB of RAM to 4, and ditched Vista 32-bit and got Windows 7 64-bit. Just those small and simple changes added a lot of life to my computer. I'm currently saving to upgrade my CPU and possibly motherboard.

There are plenty of people here to help you along the way if you do decide to simply upgrade your current PC or whatever you decide. I started off with zero experience or knowledge about putting computers together. I had a case lying around for a couple years when i had the idea of building my own but never got around to it. I decided to put my stock HP into the other case. I did some google/ youtube searches before i started, took pictures for reference of where everything was connected and just went to it. I was surprised how simple it was. That single experience greatly increased my confidence on working with computers. It's not nearly as complicated as it may seem.

[devilock76]

I was hesitant to start this thread because I know how passionate folks can be about stuff so I am very appreciative of the civilized responses from both sides.

I had never thought of Linux and might try it before buying a new computer. Just am a little leary of the open ended part of it. Can I install it and use it without removing my Windows XP to see if it helps my performance?

Several options for "trying out" linux. The most common is what is called a live cd, literally the linux system runs from the CD, you boot with the CD, nothing is installed and it boots to linux. Now granted the CD rom is slower than your hard drive so the perceived performance improvement may be negligible, depends how bad off your installed OS is, and what linux you use. Lighter weight distros will be faster on your computer.

The next option is embedded. You run it from within Windows, but this is a performance kluge so windows speed will effect the install.

Last is to install it but as a dual boot install. What that means is Linux and Windows both live on the computer and when you boot it you choose which one to boot to. In order to do this on most typical OEM windows installs you will need to resize the windows partition. This will show you exactly how fast linux can run on your hardware, since it is pretty much a full install. The catch is though that this is the more technically involved way to do it. Several here including myself have done it plenty, it is not hard but it can feel intimidating.

I can help, but if you do it step 1 is always create a Gparted live disk. I use that just to resize the windows partition. Many distros have this functionality built in to their live install disks but I have found the best results come from doing this step outside of the install.

On the Mac side, I do like the Mac App store. The kid at the local Apple store said I could buy just the spreadsheet portion for $20. I have no need for the power point and whatever the other part is.

There is a product, openoffice.org. It is free to download and use. It is a full computer office suite that will open pretty much any popular office document format. It has word processing, spreadsheet, presentation (like powerpoint) and it runs on the big three (Windows, Mac, and Linux). Whatever you get you can just download that and bam free office software.

Please keep the posts coming because if I do decide to get a new computer, I might be waiting until the first week in August because my home state of SC has a back to school tax free weekend. That would save me the .06 sales tax.

Thanks again for all the very informative posts.

And repeating, I like both Mac and Linux, but reiterating my linux choice is to save my money and trade my time in configuring my linux system. Heck most of my boxes look Mac - like.

Side note, I like the macbook as someone mentioned but the macbook pro is better in every way in my opinion. Get one refurbed, it is a worthwhile upgrade over the macbook.

Ken

[truthwolf1]

Ex PC fanboi but my Mac products just last longer. Every PC laptop i've had or my family has had starts having problems like being slow or overheating or having the keyboard break after the first year but my Macs never die and always stay fast. It's out of the box quality, like you get with buying a mercedes. It costs a little more (a lot more in some cases) but imo is worth it if you've got it.

My family has killed three HP laptops over the last two years. Our macbook has lasted 5 and still going with one battery change.

I was a MAC fanboy for years until I discovered the DELL workstation. For my needs of stritcly a computer with power for photoshop/design programs it was well within my budget and solid box.

If had the money I would definately go for a Apple desktop over any laptop/pc desktop but you need to get what you can afford.

[risurfer]

Several options for "trying out" linux. The most common is what is called a live cd, literally the linux system runs from the CD, you boot with the CD, nothing is installed and it boots to linux. Now granted the CD rom is slower than your hard drive so the perceived performance improvement may be negligible, depends how bad off your installed OS is, and what linux you use. Lighter weight distros will be faster on your computer.


Last is to install it but as a dual boot install.

I can help, but if you do it step 1 is always create a Gparted live disk. I use that just to resize the windows partition. Many distros have this functionality built in to their live install disks but I have found the best results come from doing this step outside of the install.

As above,
Use live CD to see if you can deal with the appearance/setup of the OS. If it's OK, then install dual-boot.

With Ubuntu, this just means clicking the button below "run as live cd" that says, "install" then picking to not overwrite your whole HD.


@ken, odd that you say a "gparted" disc, but that you do it from windows- Gparted is the linux partitioning program, not the name for a partitioned HD.

@OP, fwiw, I've never had an issue when doing a simple install on a machine with one HD, just using the partitioner that comes with ubuntu. 4 RAID drives, in two different RAID configs, well that was a different story.

[devilock76]

As above,
Use live CD to see if you can deal with the appearance/setup of the OS. If it's OK, then install dual-boot.

With Ubuntu, this just means clicking the button below "run as live cd" that says, "install" then picking to not overwrite your whole HD.


@ken, odd that you say a "gparted" disc, but that you do it from windows- Gparted is the linux partitioning program, not the name for a partitioned HD.

@OP, fwiw, I've never had an issue when doing a simple install on a machine with one HD, just using the partitioner that comes with ubuntu. 4 RAID drives, in two different RAID configs, well that was a different story.

What I was saying is you can create a boot disk from an image on the gparted site. It is a minimalistic live linux for the sole purpose of running gparted to resize your partitions. I have found this to be the safest and most reliable way to resize existing Windows partitions without corrupting data on them or screwing up ntldr. Granted many live installs include gparted as their tool, but experience has made me trust a dedicated gparted live disk for that purpose instead. It is probably an unnecessary step in most cases, but to me it beats fixing ntldr, especially if it is the only computer available while you do this.

I will mention I use Fedora a lot more lately and although their installer has gotten better and better I don't like the installers partitioning wizard. The funny thing is the wizard is so integrated that the manual tool in the install acts kind of silly without certain steps in the wizard occurring. So for a Fedora install, especially on a dual boot machine or a machine with very particular mount point setup I find the gparted step to be a good first step before committing to the install.

I will repeat it is not necessary. But my experience has lead me to believe that it is preferred in my order of operations. Granted my needs are more particular than the average user as an IT professional and musician. Not that far out but enough that I do some things a particular way for the sake of not having to fix certain things that have bitten me before.

There is a downside to that gparted live image. It is not Wizard based so the user will have to make some choices that a typical Ubuntu install will do for you if you ask it to.

Ken

[devilock76]

I forgot to mention, to the original question. You can also use a USB stick to run a live image. Setting this up is a little more complicated than using the cd, but with this setup you can save information to the USB drive like it was a computer you bring with you. Also USB can be a lot faster than a CD live image when running.

The only caveat is you may need to go into the BIOS depending on your computer so it knows to boot from usb. Or enter the boot options menu at startup.

Ken

[lxskllr]

Ken gave pretty good advice. The only changes I would make are LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice, and I'd recommend the Ubuntu wubi install for someone serious about trying Linux.

LibreOffice is the real free office suite now. They have the best devs, and OpenOffice is just spinning wheels atm.

The wubi install creates a virtual disk in Windows, and is easy to setup and use. It takes a tiny amount of extra time setting it up, as opposed to using a live CD, but will give near native install performance, instead of the frustrating lag running from a CD.

One thing to keep in mind with Linux(and any O/S you aren't familiar with) is it isn't Windows. It isn't hard to use, but you have to be patient learning it. Here's the positives and negatives of switching to Linux from a Windows user's perspective as I see it(someone else can handle Apple)...

Pros
Linux is more secure. You don't need A/V, or spyware scanners. It's pretty much care free computing.

Linux is free, as in beer, and speech. It costs nothing, and the code is yours to change if you desire. Most people here aren't gonna be changing code, but that's a valuable feature. Even if you can't do it yourself, you can pay someone to do it for you. Imagine if you could customize Windows apps when you needed an extra feature. You generally wouldn't be allowed to, but with Linux you can.

Lots of free software accessible from the desktop. You just go to the package manager, pick an app, and download it. No hunting around the web looking for something good, and no worries about the "free" app you found carrying a viral payload.

Limitless customization. If you don't like something, change it. Some of it's easy to do, and some of it's hard, but the sky's the limit for what you can do. Don't like colors? change it. Don't like the window border? change it. Add a dock, desktop widgets, system information... It's like zombocom. Anything is possible :^D

*Hardware detection blows Windows out of the water. Lots of stuff works out of the box, with no internet driver hunt.

Cons

*While hardware detection is great, it isn't flawless. If something /doesn't/ work, the options to fix it range from easy to painful to impossible. It's a Windows world, and drivers are made for Windows. That leaves *nix users in cold sometimes.

It's a Windows world. Off the shelf software likely won't work. There's some kludgy hacks available for running Windows apps on Linux, but that's kind of lame, and can be painful to setup.

There's no C: drive. You'll have to learn computer file systems all over again. Nothing is where you think it is. You'll be back to ground zero for finding your way around the computer.

Support. Again, it's a Windows world. If you have a problem in Windows, there's probably a million other people with the same problem, and it's easier to find a fix online. Support for Linux ranges from good to tedious. There won't be as many people with the problem, and the fix might come from someone who isn't a native English speaker. You might also be at the terminal entering arcane commands, and if the instructions are off by 1 character, you'll fail, and may not know why, especially being a new user.

That's about it for now. I could go into excruciating detail, but I think that's the big differences. As you probably know, I prefer Linux. I don't hate MS or anything; in fact, I'm a pretty big fan. I own Windows licenses for most of their products starting from Win3.11 and DOS all the way up to Win7, and I prefer Linux. Some things are harder, and it took me a little while to get comfortable, but the benefits well outweigh the negatives for me.

[Roo]

PMD the Apple app you mention is called Numbers, and yeah you can get it for $20 on its own without the Powerpoint equivalent and all that. I just did this a few weeks ago and it's a great program. Extremely intuitive and functionally and aesthetically impressive. I hate Excel but Numbers is really great. And cheap. The Microsoft Word equivalent is called Pages, also quite good. Good luck with your decision.

Edit: LMAO lxskllr, with all due respect, if I was grappling with PMD's decision and I read your last post, I would run as far and as quickly as possible in the opposite direction of what you are talking about! Sounds like computer Hell to me! lol

[lxskllr]

Edit: LMAO lxskllr, with all due respect, if I was grappling with PMD's decision and I read your last post, I would run as far and as quickly as possible in the opposite direction of what you are talking about! Sounds like computer Hell to me! lol

Well, I'm trying to give a realistic idea of what can be expected. A lot of Linux fanbois act like Linux is all gumdrops and rainbows, and is suitable for every person. For PMD, it would /likely/ be a flawless install, and gravy to operate,, but sometimes things don't go per plan, and I'd rather people expect the worst, and be pleasantly surprised rather than the alternative. Everything's a trade off one way or the other, and it depends on the individual for how it all turns out.