[ale] Mac switcher ... to Ubuntu

[Thomas Stromberg]

On 28 jul 2006, at 07.22, Eric VanWieren wrote:

> I guess the question to ask is did he put linux on his mac, or did  
> he buy a commodity machine.

I bet he went x86, and if not, he will real soon due to lack of PPC  
application support.

This and other articles really made me think pretty hard about moving  
back to a pure UNIX'y desktop again. When Mac OS X 10.0 came out, I  
bought a G4 and stopped running FreeBSD as a desktop at home. It was  
a great decision for a while, since I was doing so much operating  
systems tinkering at work, and didn't want to come home to it as  
well. Nowadays I'm just doing Python programming, and miss doing  
systems work.

The tools on Linux are getting painless enough to use to make it  
worthwhile to shift back now as a desktop. Mac OS X only seems to be  
getting further from it's open-source roots as time goes on.  The  
problem for me with switching to Linux is that I have no  x86 machine  
capable of supporting two DVI monitors, as it's PCI only.  Running  
Linux on my G5 sounded like a good compromiseat first until I think  
about the binary-only applications I use that do are only available  
under Linux x86:

* Bibble Pro (RAW Photo management)
* Macromedia Flash Player
* iTunes (through WINE / CrossOver)
* Google Earth

While I would miss Civilization IV, OmniGraffle, and support for my  
Eye-One Match (color calibrator), I think I could get over it. I  
suppose I'll wait a few months to see how Mac OS X 10.5 is shaping up  
and perhaps acquire an x86 Mac that I can dual-boot with. =]

// Thomas Str?mberg
// http://toadstool.se/
// +1 678 773 9475