Mac vs. PC

[Samwise]

I did not see a single mac virus on that page discovered after year 2000.

Mac OS 9 viruses existed, I grant you that. But give me a page filled with viruses for OS X.

Mac OS X 10.0 was first released 2001.
By the way, Linux is based on UNIX, which OS X is also based off of.

I have had hacker friends try to hack into OS X and Linux and they've told me that Linux was quite a bit easier.

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

I did not see a single mac virus on that page discovered after year 2000.

Mac OS 9 viruses existed, I grant you that. But give me a page filled with viruses for OS X.

Mac OS X 10.0 was first released 2001.
By the way, Linux is based on UNIX, which OS X is also based off of.

I have had hacker friends try to hack into OS X and Linux and they've told me that Linux was quite a bit easier.

I am aware of the history of UNIX and OS X, and Linux . Refer to any of my previous posts for that.

It all depends on how secure the system is. That is dependent on any machine be it Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Macs can be hacked. So can Linux. Anything can. But you can make your system tighter, and harder to penetrate.

[Rio]

So you base your technological preference on nothing more than "This semi-famous person uses this, so I must to" whim? I haven't even heard you give one ounce of real information. And mainly contradicted yourself Wink. I don't care who uses a mac, I have enough sense to know that, even if Bill gates converted to Mac OS X, it wouldn't effect my opinion on whether or not how stable, secure, or how much it takes on resources, what about how much it automates? You want complete control of your system? I do. And neither mac or windows grants me that. They hide behind software licenses, cower under viruses, and do everything for me. There is no real system control.
Tell me that Vista and Leopard can do that .

Oh for crying out loud! I have been a mac user way before the movie ever came out. I meant to mean that i was soo impressed that movies are now showing more macs..... and if its facts you want then here!

It works (plug and play)
It doesn't crash (OS X is UNIX-based)
It offers the best in digital music (iTunes, iPod)
It provides the missing link in digital photography (iPhoto)
It serves as a digital entertainment center (iLife, iMovie, iDVD)
It's portable (iBook, PowerBook, MacBook Pro)
It's built for the Internet (email, iChat, QuickTime, AirPort)
Windows applications have Macintosh equivalents (Microsoft Office for Mac)
It networks with PCs (Ethernet, AirPort, USB, FireWire)
It's beautiful (iMac)
Mac users are 50% more accurate and 44% more productive than Wintel users.

About apple cowering behind licensing..... If you buy only one set of software, then you install it on only one computer(apple), plain an simple. which is smart to keep other people from installing apple software into windows based hardware. Apple is only meant for apple. Which in my mind makes apple so secure.

I can tell that you are set on linex and what ever people say about it aint gonna faze you, well remember this, I am the same way about macs!

I dont know why you are attackin macs when linex and macs are quite similar, you should make all them pcpeeps convert!

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

Now thats what I like to hear

Your right, macs and linux are very similar in quite a few ways.
The real major difference is that mac is a company, and linux isn't. It's more community driven than anything.

so I will throw in my diagnostic of the +mac -pc +linux dealio you have going


PostPosted: 28 Dec 2007 01:37 am Post subject: [Note]
Ryan wrote:

So you base your technological preference on nothing more than "This semi-famous person uses this, so I must to" whim? I haven't even heard you give one ounce of real information. And mainly contradicted yourself Wink. I don't care who uses a mac, I have enough sense to know that, even if Bill gates converted to Mac OS X, it wouldn't effect my opinion on whether or not how stable, secure, or how much it takes on resources, what about how much it automates? You want complete control of your system? I do. And neither mac or windows grants me that. They hide behind software licenses, cower under viruses, and do everything for me. There is no real system control.
Tell me that Vista and Leopard can do that Wink.

Oh for crying out loud! I have been a mac user way before the movie ever came out. I meant to mean that i was soo impressed that movies are now showing more macs..... and if its facts you want then here.

It works (plug and play)

[So does slackware...most of the time. If not, a little tweaking will do it nicely. Most of my hardware is compliant though, never ran into any problems]

It doesn't crash (OS X is UNIX-based)

[Agreed. Linux is designed in layers over here, so where as if an application crashes, it is separate from ther kernel. Meaning, that my computer will never crash due to an application, the internet, or any other silly nuisances. ]

It offers the best in digital music (iTunes, iPod)

[I do love iTunes. I will give mac that, the invention of the iPod was genius. The firmware is great, and it just makes an all around easy player. Only problem, is that it is pretty much designed for windows and mac. I have applications over here that I can use with my iPod, and they work fine. Right now my firmware has issues, and is screwed up on me, so I have to re install, but without iTunes, I can't very well do that easily. So I am installing an open source firmware. I really wish iTunes would port for linux. If they can do it for windows....surely they can for linux]

It provides the missing link in digital photography (iPhoto)

[I can do the same with picasa, gimp and other suites for free ]
It serves as a digital entertainment center (iLife, iMovie, iDVD) [Mplayer, acidrip, k3b, all let me watch dvd's, convert them into .avi, and burn them to cd's or dvd's ]

It's portable (iBook, PowerBook, MacBook Pro)

[I have a laptop . And plus, I don't have to spend a thousand man hours trying to pop the case open. From what I hear, ibooks are fairly difficult to get open.]

It's built for the Internet (email, iChat, QuickTime, AirPort)

[Thunderbird, Firefox, Pidgin, Mplayer/VLC, and ndiswrapper allow me to do all the web browsing and IM'ing, and emailing that I can't live without]

Windows applications have Macintosh equivalents (Microsoft Office for Mac)

[I both commend mac, and am disappointed at the same time for this. If mac users can run windows programs, why shouldn't windows users be granted the same opportunity? Lets be fair now . And as far as that for linux, wine, cedega, crossover, let me run many many windows programs. Including MS Office, (I use open office instead though) and games like Half-life 2, or NFS. If I wanted to (haven't found the need for it yet) I believe there are also some OS 9 emulators, or something to that effect]

It networks with PCs (Ethernet, AirPort, USB, FireWire)

[Ethernet, Ndiswrapper, USB, DVI, Standard internet ports, are all on my computer, including a media card reader, and they all work here with linux perfectly for networking with pc's and macs. Samba lets me share my server running gentoo onto windows machines/macs]

It's beautiful (iMac)

[I will say that. I love the way they have designed it. A lot of people send it through a corny meter, but they are very pretty in my opinion. As far as my computer, I have Blue LED's on my touch pad, for wireless, disk access, caps lock, and number lock, a blue circle LED for my power button, Blue LED letting me know that my computer is on, at the front, One that goes purple when it is charging, blue when it is completely charged, and the most awesomeness- red when it is at 10%. Plus I have an aircraft grade aluminum palm rest. Don't see metal on macs do ya?]

Mac users are 50% more accurate and 44% more productive than Wintel users.

[That is probably more accurate than not. Just simply because windows users don't really need to know their system a whole lot to be able to use it effectively. I don't know personally about macs, but I am sure it is more or less the other way. But at the same time, I could say all the more about linux. Because you have to know your system well. In and out. It takes a lot on my part to run slackware, because it is so input based. And I like it that way]

I'll add some more .

How much did you spend on your mac? For iLife? Probably quite a bit. Especially if you want good hardware. For what I have in my computer now as far as specs, to get in a mac, would have cost me exactly $1,374 MORE. That isn't including the software that I have that is just as good as mac software- for free. Every single piece of software on this computer right now, didn't cost me a dime. And that is very satisfying for me . I love knowing that I didn't pay for everything I have, legally at that! And it all runs so well.

How much can your user do? Am I not correct in that macs users, are assigned administrative privileges by default? I am pretty sure they are. That means that, someone with malicious intent, if gotten your users password, can do quite a bit .
In slackware (And all linux distributions) You have a root user (The all seeing eye, with all control) And a normal desktop user. This way, if someone were to get access, physical, or internet access to my computer, they would need to crack not only my users password, but my root password, which I keep insanely long, and change every month or so. This doesn't mean that I have to log out every time I need to do an administrative action either, it just means that I run the command, or application as root. Which is as simple as typing "su" into a terminal, typing in my password, and going about my business. Or, if an application needs root privileges, it notifies me, and I type in my password if necessary. Or if I need to run a program as root, it comes up and asks me. A lot like windows vista, only a little more secure . In fact, I am pretty sure that is where Microsoft got the idea . This also means I can let my idiotic friends on my computer, and not have to worry about them changing anything, or messing anything up .

Updating. I know that apple does a far more better job at this than Microsoft. But I am not so sure it does a better job than linux. With ubuntu (Which I don't use anymore, but I am giving it as an example) Updates for software, security, and just about everything you can think of comes in everyday, and updates with one update manager, and it does it all very neatly, and swiftly. I never had to restart suddenly, in fact, didn't need to restart at all, only for a kernel update . Which is very handy, because some applications on windows, they MAKE you restart, very soon. Which is a pain in the rear, when you have a 10,000 word essay, and haven't saved your half-way through draft, and lose 5,000 words because a program wants to update. When I had vista running for a few months to test it, and probe it, I noticed that it did a good job at updating security patches, wireless patches, and hardware patches, but I constantly was putting off restarting, because it was very inconvenient for me. I still say that updating with ubuntu, was pretty care free, and I didn't have to restart. Nowadays here with slackware, I do a lot of it by hand, because I enjoy it better that way.

Safari, and mail.app. These programs are growing fairly popular, in many users. With apple porting their beta releases and what not of safari to windows, and their very comical "Get a mac" ads, more users are gaining on to macs popularity. This means that the more mac users there are, the more likely they will be targeted. This is true for any operating system. Most attackers, look at windows as easy pick'ins because EVERYBODY uses it, and a smaller percentage of them actually keep it secure. Because windows has such a large user base, it is attacked more. And mac is getting there. Because mac is attracting more popularity as time goes by, it will not be too long before they are targeted, it's just common knowledge. This also means there will be more security updates for mac, which is a good and a bad thing .


Being a computer geek, and a linux evangelist (Couldn't tell could ya?) I like to have my options. That is one of my main pushes for technology, I think people should have the option to choose whatever they want, without restrictions. Sounds pretty good no? Well, let me explain a little further. I want the option to choose linux over mac, and over pc. I just want to have the right to choose what is best for me. I also want the right to choose my software. Which we all can do, but how many of you choose a piece of software, and pay for it? Or how long does it take to find the right piece of software? In ubuntu there is the apt-get system. With synaptic as it's front end, I could browse thousands on thousands of pieces of software, ready for me to abuse, for free. With slackware I compile from source, which is better for me, or I use swaret to do basically the same thing as apt-get. Can you do that on windows or mac? Nay. I have a real problem with that, because it limits my choices. There is open source software for both mac and pc, but how easy is it to access? Not very. Browsing through weirdo pages that, nonetheless, I wouldn't need to be on if I just had a universal application to handle almost every application!

GUI Customization. Macs are pretty, but as far as customizing goes....They are almost in the same boat as windows. There are themes, but you are limited. With slackware, I am not limited. I can have as many window managers as I want, just go to google and type in the following for searches:

xfce

KDE

gnome

fluxbox (My choice)

And you will see the difference in each of them. And I can customize those, build my own, or not even use a GUI! Just go straight rambo-like terminal on j00! Coming back to the "option" category, I can just choose. With a WIDE variety of choices I am not limited. Which brings me to my next point....

Limitation. Proprietary software has it's limits. You can't very well share that with your friends, you can't modify it, and in a lot of cases, you are very restricted in what you can use it for, and how you use it. I don't like that one bit. I want to know what I am dealing with. Which means viewing the source. I want to be able to modify my applications if they do not suite my needs. I can share all of my applications with my friends, even my operating system, and I can change everything. I don't have a set limit of what I can, or can't do. And its legal .

The ability to run my OS, and applications, flawlessly, on older computers. I thought it was pretty decent of mac to allow leopard to run on older machines, including the ppc versions. That was pretty decent of them. But how far can you push that? What about windows? can you run vista on a 500mhz machine with 128MB of ram with nice, flawless performance? No. . I can run slackware, gentoo, and lots of other distributions on them though In fact, my server, with 500Mhz, and 384MBs of RAM, runs very nicely with gentoo. I can run all of my favorite distributions on older machines!

I have drudged on long enough, so if you have even taken the time to read all of this stuff, I appreciate it

Edited to add quote tags etc.

[Pseudonym]

It might look less intimidating if you put the quoted part in quote tags.

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

It might look less intimidating if you put the quoted part in quote tags.

Manual labor? Bah. Who needs that?

[Catspaw]

It might look less intimidating if you put the quoted part in quote tags.

Manual labor? Bah. Who needs that?

I know that I don't, so I vote that next time you do it instead of me.

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

It might look less intimidating if you put the quoted part in quote tags.

Manual labor? Bah. Who needs that?

I know that I don't, so I vote that next time you do it instead of me.

Haha Ok . I suppose I can.

[Aslan]

Mac all the way!!!!

[Samwise]

[I have a laptop . And plus, I don't have to spend a thousand man hours trying to pop the case open. From what I hear, ibooks are fairly difficult to get open.]

Manhours? I love opening iBooks... I've dissected many of those! MacBooks, on the other hand are completely easy to upgrade, it takes the fun away!

Don't see metal on macs do ya?]

Macs have had metal since Powerbook G4 -> MacBook Pro


Mac Pro


Latest intel iMac


Who says macs don't got no metal? haha

You also mentioned GUI customizability. In Linux, it's just more simple. In Macs, you dig the system files and edit them.

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

Like I said, I might be wrong.

Macs have had metal since the g4? sweet .

Samwise have you ever opened a mac mini? .

I had always assumed the material wasn't metal. Looked more like a hard plastic to me. Or something like that.

[Rio]

AMEN finally we have agreement atlast!
Even though it does cost quite a bit more then a cheap pc machine rig, I would gladly pay the extra. For all you get at such high quality, it definitely is worth the $$!

[Kait]

*still needs to put Ubuntu on her Mac*

The more I've been researching Linux, the more I'm liking it...but there is no way I'll ever like it better than Macs.

Speaking of which...I'se needs to upgrade to Leopaaaard


And yeah...Macs have had metal since the G4 *looks at her laptop*

At least....I sure as heck hope this is metal...

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

Linux just satisfies my need for utter control and power......

It just does everything that I want done, and those are things that neither windows or mac can offer me.

[Samwise]

Like I said, I might be wrong.

Macs have had metal since the g4? sweet .

Samwise have you ever opened a mac mini? .

I had always assumed the material wasn't metal. Looked more like a hard plastic to me. Or something like that.

I believe the first Powerbook G4 sported titanium and moved over to aluminum after three revisions.

I have never opened a mac mini, but they definitely look interesting to open up.
According to iFixit guides, http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/ it does not look too challenging.

[Azariah Ben Yaakov]

Yeah I know one or two people that say that it is pretty hard to open up.

[Samwise]

You don't know hard until you try a clamshell iBook!
They are crazy...

Powerbooks and Macbooks (pros and non pros) generally are very easy to moderate. iBooks, however have a history.

[Rio]

You said it!!
My friend gots a ibook and boy o boy, talk about hard. She had to show my how to open it and even then i still didn't get it. it like trying to open a, well a ibook....
On the other hand, we have a powerbook and it pertty easy to open and close.

[MajorSplendor]

Well..for what it's worth.. I'm a mac user. I have an iMac right now. I have an old mac laptop. And a friend of mine collects them. He has about 8. The very first mac laptop and so on. It's really neat to see how mac has progressed. I love them!

[Rio]

Another recruit! AMEN