Thinking about getting a Mac... [Archive]

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Cable

February 5th, 2007, 09:18 PM

I'm an Arts Technology major in my junior year of college. I have Windows XP and Ubuntu in a dual boot environment on my PC. During my time in this major, I have used Macs to do a lot of the work I do. Arts Technology involves a lot of multimedia things (Photoshop, audio/video, web design, etc.). I've grown to love Linux and am liking Windows less and less. I do not plan to invest in Vista.

Being in this major, I think it would be a very smart idea to invest in a Mac. They are great for multimedia and graphic work, which is what I do/will be doing. They are quite expensive though, and I would need to get a loan in order to buy one. Linux is great, but I just don't know if I could do all of the work that I need to in Linux. It just seems to me like a Mac would make things much easier and boost productivity. I have not arrived at a final decision though, and simply wanted to put my thoughts out in the open here and get some input from the amazing Ubuntu community. So...what would you do in my situation? What would you advise or recommend?

And please...let's leave DRM and all of that stuff out of this. I'm talking from a solely academic and productivity-based perspective. I'm well aware of Apple's marketing strategies and DRM craziness.

Brainfart

February 5th, 2007, 09:23 PM

Macs have definitely built a reputation in your field, though I don't know how valid it is (not my field). They'll likely have native support for better software than you'd get on Linux, and in that regard you're probably correct to get one. Besides, they do seem pretty well made. Might as well use the best tool to get the job done ;)

futz

February 5th, 2007, 09:40 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

Quillz

February 5th, 2007, 10:02 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html
That's only one man's opinion. And I doubt you'll be finding software like the industry-standard Final Cut Pro (for example) on any platform other than Mac.

Why not get an iMac and just dual-boot between OS X and Linux (or Windows?)

Rule

February 5th, 2007, 10:07 PM

ComplexNumber

February 5th, 2007, 10:09 PM

Quillz

February 5th, 2007, 10:25 PM

yea that is just one mac opinion tho.

I myself just bought a Mac and I don't regret it at all infact it's the best decision I ever made that envlovles money haha.

a couple of friends of mine only use Macs for there graphic/web/animation work I don't know what makes Macs good in that area but they seem to really enjoy it ^_^
As I said, it's because a lot of the industry standard software, like Final Cut Pro (for video editing) is either owned by Apple, or is exclusive to the Mac platform. And even though other graphic programs like Photoshop aren't exclusive, they always seem more responsive on the Mac, imo.

H.E. Pennypacker

February 5th, 2007, 11:06 PM

Cable, I have no issue with your buying a Mac, just as long as you don't forget the open source movement, and contribute to it by still using open source software, even after buying a Mac.

The thing I am most interested in is people like you (the multimedia) supporting the open source movement by having a voice heard that demands better multimedia support and multimedia software. If enough people like you stand together, maybe an open source operating system (probably Linux) will become the de facto system for multimedia software. I know it may seem like a ridiculous thought now, but that's the point of working towards a goal.

Besides, OS X is better than Windows any day, but because of the system, but because an increase in OS X sales is a decrease in Windows sales. In the end, a more dominant Mac base is more useful to the open source world.

Atomic Dog

February 5th, 2007, 11:38 PM

I have a 8 mo old iMac at work and hate the damn thing with a passion. I use my laptop sitting on a folding table next to my chair instead (with Ubuntu of course). I want things to get done fast. I don't need the mac prettyness, or the slowness.

Personally I just do not like it. I sought Ubuntu as an alternate platform instead of Windows -which i have to admit still does a few things better than the mac or ubuntu.

Do what you want. if you like the appeal of the mac get it. I just don't buy into that religion.

...and as an aside I hate the hell out of that elitist attitude mac users have. Yea, you're hot stuff because you own a mac. Pfft... Have you been in an apple store lately? Sheesh!

And i have to support a bunch of intel macs at work. Everybody keeps begging me to score them a Win box instead... one took an ubuntu box as a replacement. He likes it better than mac, not as much as Win.

SunnyRabbiera

February 5th, 2007, 11:50 PM

A mac is a good alternate route, especially now with apple using intel.
this means it is possible to load apple, linux AND windows into the core.
its your option, I have no grievances with macs.

Sunnz

February 6th, 2007, 12:27 AM

AFAIK, the DRM thing only applies to iTunes store. As long as you don't buy music from iTunes, you'll have no problems with DRM. OS X itself doesn't even have product activation like Windows - you can technically install OS X on as many computer as you want to without any cracking.

Good to keep an eye on Defective by Design site though.

Hardware wise, Mac is really well designed, it always could run Linux, and now it can also run Windows, but it is the only computer that can legally run OS X. You can think of it as a PC that just happens to come with OS X.

You definitely want a Mac for multimedia stuff. Remember that Vista is very power hungry so you would need a very new computer - you probably be doing very computing intensive stuff, Windows won't do very well when you have a tight budget.

I would suggests you to take look at macrumor's forum, they have a trading place thing where they sell second hand Macs, maybe it fits your budget better... do you know what kind of Mac do you want yet? A desktop or a laptop?

Sunnz

February 6th, 2007, 12:31 AM

be aware that macs aren't exactly the most reliable computers around. read this (http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/macbooks2.html).

you may still need to do as much work with a mac(in fact, maybe more) than is required with linux.
I still have an iMac G3 (came out in 2000) that is running well as a file server...

fenian

February 6th, 2007, 12:52 AM

And I doubt you'll be finding software like the industry-standard Final Cut Pro (for example) on any platform other than Mac

Actually you'll find it on linux it's called autodesk inferno (it's used in high end video/film production,it runs about $12,000).

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562767&siteID=123112

JayDoubleM

February 6th, 2007, 01:02 AM

I have a old G4 PowerBook, and I have to say that I love it, if you can afford a Mac its definately worth it. I use my Ubuntu mainly for MythTV, but I have to say it is very close to the Mac, I just can't live without Photoshop and Final Cut

RAV TUX

February 6th, 2007, 01:09 AM

moving to Mac OS X forum

riven0

February 6th, 2007, 01:30 AM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

:lol: Priceless!

In either case, be careful, because between the mooing, discolorations, random shutdowns, cracking, logic board failures and more, Apple has been having a lot of quality control problems. Run over the macrumors board to check it out yourself.

Cable

February 6th, 2007, 04:17 PM

Thanks for all of the great responses! I'll have to take a look at the sites that were linked to. As for remembering the open source movement: of course I'll remember it! I am by no means planning to stop using Ubuntu. I absolutely love Ubuntu and everything that it stands for, and will gladly continue to use it on my PC. I do hope that someday I will be able to use Linux for my multimedia/academic needs, and will certainly keep an eye on it since I will most definitely continue using it. Besides, I'm not even sure that I'm going to buy a Mac yet, I'm simply considering it.

In terms of Macs, I would like to get a desktop. I don't really have a need for a laptop, as I believe it would just serve as another opportunity for distraction when I could be doing something productive. I'm thinking about getting either a Mac Pro or a PowerMac G5. I figure if I'm going to spend money on a Mac, I might as well get a good one. I am, however, open to suggestions and what not.

Sunnz

February 7th, 2007, 12:33 AM

One major thing you really need to consider about: the Mac Pro runs on Intel chip while PowerMac G5 runs on PPC.

Since you are doing graphics design, I assume that you need to run Photoshop. If you have been following the versions, it is now up to CS2.

There is no CS2 port for Intel. It will run on the Mac Pro though, but the performance is average at best - CS2 will run faster on PowerMac, but CS3 is coming out soon which runs native on Intel Mac Pro and it will be faster than anything.

You need to think about when do you need Photoshop.

Do you think you can get away with running CS2 somewhat slow on Mac Pro for a few months then get on to the full speed of CS3; or do you have massive graphical work to do NOW and needs full performance of Photoshop?

Final Cut, AFAIK, is already native on Intel... but you might want to see if your list of software has ported to Intel to decide if you should go PPC or Intel; and of course don't just check if they are ported now, sometimes they might be port in the next coming months too.

Cable

February 7th, 2007, 01:01 AM

This wouldn't really be an issue for me, as I'm still in school. I can afford to wait on that.

The one big issue I'm having is that of cost and money. I'm a college student, and am inherently poor. I would need to get a loan (hopefully academic so that I could wait to start paying until I graduate) if I was to buy a Mac Pro. I simply don't like the thought of getting a loan, but I could just be paranoid. My logic is simply that if I'm going to get a new computer, I should make sure it's a damn good computer. Is this logic flawed? Should I be willing to settle for less (a G4 or G5)?

Either way, I don't have enough money in my pocket to buy a new computer. Regardless of what I buy, I'd need some way of getting more money.

P.S. I'm known for being a penny pincher, so that could explain my issue too. Who knows...

Sunnz

February 7th, 2007, 01:12 AM

Well, if you are a college student, there is a student discount for new Macs... only a few hundred dollars at best, but it is better than nothing.

Keep in mind that G5 isn't a slow processor at all, and software will continue be support on it for a few years. But you need to really look at the prices yourself, is the G5 significant more affordable than the Mac Pro? The G5 should be 'ok' for what you are doing, but if you can, find on and try one out, see if it meets your usage demand. After all it is your money/loan, so I can't tell you what to do with it.

MaXqUE

February 7th, 2007, 06:24 PM

Personally I just do not like it. I sought Ubuntu as an alternate platform instead of Windows -which i have to admit still does a few things better than the mac or ubuntu.

Before I ever owned a computer and had only seen DOS and Windows I was sitting with a friend who was doing work for a small newspaper. My mouth dropped open when I saw what she was doing with PageMaker (when it was owned by Aldus) on those little Mac Classics. It was Black & White monitors still. Since I am a musician and also interested in graphic work, I made up my mind then that my first computer would be a Macintosh.

I have not regretted that decision. My PowerPC 7600 was probably more expensive than a PC, however my Mac came with built-in ethernet (which astounded my Windows friends), it had in/out RCA jacks for recording, S-Video and I could even watch television using the tuner in my VCR. I could even record from those television show.

When Apple switched processors from the Motorla 68000 serires to PowerPC, they left behind many users who thought their Macs would be useless boat anchors. Apple helped port linux to PowerPC, assisted Linux developers with the things unique to Apple hardware which the could not otherwise write kernel modules for, and they sponsored MKLinux for a time, even assigning a developer to help. My first Linux installation was off a Mac Addict CD using an installer for LInux written in AppleScript. So, in part, Apple is responsible for my interest in Lilnux.

We all know what corporations are like. They are bound by fiduciary obligations to people many of us don't like. However, they have still managed to be in the forefront of the creative arts on computers. Apple leads in that field because the software they write is good. The film and TV industry would not use it if it were anything less than outstanding.

After Xerox closed PARC there was almost zero interest in continuing the ground breaking research they did. Only Apple carried things forward.

Do what you want. if you like the appeal of the mac get it. I just don't buy into that religion.

You know, there are zealots on the PC side of things. I most often don't talk about running a Mac because quite frequently, as soon as it becomes known I have a Mac, it seems to be open season on me. I have been goaded, poked, prodded 'til I'm just sick and tired of it. Hence I just keep quiet.

Now before I get accused of being a "Zealot", Apple is perfect. they are still one of the companies hodling back the complete and unfettered release of TrueType fonts. I don't think Apple acted very honourably in the way they developed Safari. They didn't treat the Konquorer Dev team very well. They did things in a sneaky manner when they did not have to. They have also been likewarm with Darwin. Apple should **know** what its like for a programmer not to know if his project is on or off, because many of them ARE or were developers at one time.

...and as an aside I hate the hell out of that elitist attitude mac users have. Yea, you're hot stuff because you own a mac. Pfft... Have you been in an apple store lately? Sheesh!

No, there is no Apple store near me. When Apple does put a store near me it will likely be in a location which I do not like to go to, so I will deal with my friendly Apple dealer who is within minutes of my residence. Apple stores are avoidable.

Personally I hate platform bashing of any kind so I usually steer clear of those discussions. But since the thread is basically about deciding whether or not to buy one, I will step up and state that if you are using a computer in the creative industries or in a film/TV/Graphics or Music/ Multimedia course, a Mac is almost a must. It is the standard computer in those industries.

I have worked in broadcasting and have spent alot of time around people in those industries, and I know that the Macintosh platform is the standard. If you don't like Macintosh, you still bite the bullet and use it. It is one of the tools of your trade.

Now if someone was going into architecture and drafting then without a doubt you would get a PC. AutoCAD is the standard application and it only runs on Windows.

Linux is trying very hard to catch up to Apple in the Multimedia field. Linux is a powerful computing platform and is is certainly capable of doing everything that is now done on Macs.

What is missing on Linux, is the ease of use. If I want to do some music editing as I have been attempting in the recent past, I can start right in on my project on my iBook. On Linux, I spend more time trying to fiddle with configuring the operating system and almost never get to the real work of editing.

Oddly, the program I am using on my iBook to do the audio editing is Audacity. I want to do the same on linux, but I've never quite been able to get to actually doing it. I am always doing some configuration things with the system. Ubuntu is a big step forward.

Apple, like all other commercial operating system vendors, leaves older hardware and older operating systems behind. My iBook will one day be obsolete as far as Apple is concerned. It is a PPC machine and slowly but surely there will be fewer and fewer applications released for Macs running PPC. At that point my iBook will run LInux.

Apple is a hardware manufacturer, and every one has preferences about the hardware they purchase. Macs are personal computers like IBM PC's are and they are just machines. Its the users that make the difference

Cheers,
MaXqUE

jgeorgie33

July 17th, 2007, 02:41 PM

I'm completely a PC guy, but I do believe that macs are great. The reason that they're considered more stable is because their operating system is made for their exact hardware. Windows has to deal with pretty much an infinite amount of drivers and hardware.

If you get a mac, once you get over all the little stupid differences you won't be dissatisfied at all.

DjBones

July 29th, 2007, 02:39 AM

stmiller

July 29th, 2007, 02:47 AM

The Powermac G5 machines are not a slow computer at all, and can hold a ton of ram if you do a lot of photo or graphics work, where ram is a more important factor.

Sunnz

July 29th, 2007, 08:21 AM

well.. linus torvalds aka the man uses a mac, but ironically he said that using mac's are pointless because linux can do everything better; but would you expect anything less from linus haha?
i see no problem in buying mac, as long as you dual boot :P

((i found the actual quote, took me a few because i originally read it in a magazine lol
"Nope, I don't use either [Windows or Mac OS X]. OS X is kind of pointless (pretty much anything it has, Linux can do better) and Windows offers stuff that I don't much care about (mainly games -- and I've got games machines for those)." ))
Well Linus runs Linux on his Mac anyway, so it isn't the Mac that everybody else is thinking about anyway... and Linux runs great on PowerPC, and G5 is an extremely fast processor at its time.

I always wondered though, are there anything that Linux can "do better" than Mac when it comes to movie editing, does Linux has anything that matches iMovie and Final Cut Studio? Or is he strictly talking about the kernel?

Ultra Magnus

July 29th, 2007, 12:34 PM

If your doing arty type stuff you would probably be best sticking with linux - its been claimed that as much as 90% of movie studios use Linux and its fast becoming the standard platform for media and such - Don't see much point in getting a mac beyond the undeniably good looking hardware!

Sunnz

July 29th, 2007, 12:49 PM

I heard that The Matrix 2 and 3's CG scenes are rendered under a cluster of Linux machines... but what about the design and modelling? I think they are done on a Mac...

Well Ultra Magnus, what are the iMovie and Final Cut Studio equivalents on Linux? I am trying to find some but haven't had much luck yet.

stmiller

July 30th, 2007, 01:26 AM

Yeah Pixar renders its movies (Maya) with Linux clusters. Maya and Blender are the big Linux 3D heavyweights. Also Shake is used quite a bit.

3rdalbum

July 30th, 2007, 10:35 AM

Steve Jobs is a big shareholder of Pixar - in fact, he was the CEO for quite a while.

Really, the only reason why the animation and modelling is done on Macs is because the biggest selection of 3D apps is on Mac and Windows; and the Mac OS probably does outperform Windows in this space.

As far as video editing goes, I've used a heap of Windows programs that beat iMovie's interface hands down. Final Cut Pro is probably pretty good, but I always remember Adobe Premiere as the king of video editing. If Final Cut Pro is ANYTHING like iMovie, I'd rather use www.jumpcut.com :-)

I don't think Linus was talking about applications (that's not his "space" of expertise). He was talking about the capability of the whole system to perform the tasks. With video editing, Linux is noticably better at using multiple cores and reducing bottlenecks on the hardware, than the Mac OS is. The ability to represent almost anything on the system as a file would make operations-based programs easier to write and quicker to debug; using existing open-source programs within command pipes would be a clear advantage to anyone writing for Linux, it would lessen the amount of code you'd need to write from scratch.

The one thing I'll concede to the Mac OS is that it achieved dominance of the music scene through what was essentially a very basic kernel which didn't introduce overheads, and therefore could route music data very efficiently. Even today, the Mac OS X kernel has real-time features that make it desirable for music production, and the vanilla Linux kernels don't have those features. That's no skin off my back - Linux is good for other things, and I don't expect one operating system to be the be-all-and-end-all.

Sunnz

July 30th, 2007, 11:43 AM

As far as video editing goes, I've used a heap of Windows programs that beat iMovie's interface hands down. Final Cut Pro is probably pretty good, but I always remember Adobe Premiere as the king of video editing. If Final Cut Pro is ANYTHING like iMovie, I'd rather use www.jumpcut.com :-)

Final Cut is actually the industry standard for professional use, it isn't anything like iMovie... I suggest you to look it up on wikipedia or something...

jumpcut seems like a web application, is it not?

Taum

July 31st, 2007, 03:49 AM

Working in television, I've used AVID on Macs and PCs to create on-air content. The Macs were 500MHz G4s with 1GB of RAM and ATI video cards. The PCs, considerably newer, were 2GHz Dells with 2GBs of RAM and Radeon video cards. Because the Macs were older, the station I worked for decided to upgrade them to the Dells.

After two months, three of the five Dells had been replaced (two partially, one completely) because they couldn't handle the workload. Even after getting all five up and running, there were still a lot of quality control issues, like colors being output too hot (yellow in particular) and audio imbalance.

While a couple of the managers thought that the problems stemmed from the systems being built for the Macs, the engineers showed on industry standard oscilloscopes and waveform generators that there were discrepancies in output.

After six months of struggling and tweaking, Dell recalled the units at full refund. The Macs that had been in place were gone but replaced with newer (yet still old) 1GHz G4s. After un-tweaking the systems, the AVID labs were back to usual in a week. Now THAT's a reason that I will trust Macintosh to handle Audio/Video.

3rdalbum

July 31st, 2007, 06:28 AM

Final Cut is actually the industry standard for professional use, it isn't anything like iMovie... I suggest you to look it up on wikipedia or something...

jumpcut seems like a web application, is it not?

Yep, I'm aware that Final Cut Pro is the professional-level application. My comment was more a dig at iMovie's interface - great for people who can almost use a computer, not so good for anyone who wants to have any level of control over the video clip :-)

Jumpcut is a web application.

Alfa989

July 31st, 2007, 08:35 AM

Yep, I'm aware that Final Cut Pro is the professional-level application. My comment was more a dig at iMovie's interface - great for people who can almost use a computer, not so good for anyone who wants to have any level of control over the video clip :-)

Jumpcut is a web application.
You can have an important level of control over the clips, that's sure...
The only thing that I don't like from iMovie is that it doesn't handle .mov without conversion... D'oh!
Well, it forced me to move to FCE, which is better anyway... :)