Who's Given Linux A Shot?

[bozodos]

I actually have to maintain about 30 of them at work, and attempt to make them coexist into an Active Directory domain as well as dual boot seamlessly into Windows XP, and work with various copiers so therefore my comment is completely valid.

The only reason we have them is because again the art types are convinced that because they are the industry "standard" that we must have them. They give us more headaches than anything else on the network (with the only possible exception being Sharepoint (but I don't have to deal with that!)).

Apart from the counter intuitive UI, general overpricedness, very mediocre and tech unfriendly hardware setup, there are endless application and networking issues with them due to them being set up by Apple to be operated as single computers with local admin accounts, not roaming user profiles, or in a domain. The amount of problems we have with Adobe CS4 and CS5 is testament to this.

Possibly the only good thing about them is the IPS screens (I prefer them to my Ultrasharps).

That's from a tech point of view.

From a user point of view, I am yet to see anything that is Mac exclusive that is a 'killer' app, or has some awesome functionality that can't be replicated in a Windows environment. Single button mice are also teh suck!

Edited October 6, 2010 by bozodos

[Jay11]

Cool... so you still haven't owned one yourself?

I'm sure you're full aware then, because you maintain 30 macs, that they do have a right click, and just because you cannot physically see the distinction of the buttons on the mouse, they still can right click and have been for years.

I don't know how they go in networking etc as I don't do that.

But as my own home/work computer it's exceptional.

I'm not here to start one of them Mac vs. PC arguments, but from my personal experience the Mac is far greater machine for MY needs.

It's just funny the statements people make about people buying Macs, such as the one in your sig.

As I said each to their own, if other machines work best for you then you would be stupid to go something else.

[funkymonkey]

Apart from the counter intuitive UI, general overpricedness, very mediocre and tech unfriendly hardware setup, there are endless application and networking issues with them due to them being set up by Apple to be operated as single computers with local admin accounts, not roaming user profiles, or in a domain. The amount of problems we have with Adobe CS4 and CS5 is testament to this.

lol we have departments full of designers and developers, in 3 locations in oz, running varying levels of mac hardware (all on OSX) and linked using Active Directory across the world in the most widespread multinational publishing company... and we don't seem to have these issues you've got your panties in a twist about

Maybe you're just doin it wrong.

That said, all the devs in our department use PC's and all the designers use Mac's. I've got both on my desk. Fucks me up good each time I change keyboard layouts.

[bozodos]

There may be something to do with the infinitely greater amount of resources available for someone who works for a multinational publishing company than for a state government agency! I imagine you would have full IT teams there, there are 6 of us here!

I know they have a right click option, I said single BUTTON not single click!

Does your organisation use roaming profiles? We use AdmitMac to enable the Macs to connect to the AD/Server 2003/2008R2 domain that we have, but it's not an ideal solution, and actually according to the Adobe support forums at least quite a few organisations have the same sorts of problems we do with their software, unfortunately, they don't really give a shit.

Apart from Photoshop etc having random problems, you then have random computers not letting random users log in and other erratic problems

I'm not the sysadmin for the macs thank fark, but even for things like the Konica Minolta copiers we have, or the Xerox printers (excluding the brand new stuff) they don't even work properly!

The crux of this, is that I can't see any supposed advantages to the OS in a home / graphic design / art environment (can't comment for those who work in *nix operating environments), nor does anything seems to run any faster or better on them. I think that people are all too quick to be brainwashed by the clever marketing techniques coming from what is actually a quite sinister and anti competetive company.

[DivHunter]

Cool... so you still haven't owned one yourself?

Why would you when you can get the same hardware rediculously cheaper and the OS for free?

[funkymonkey]

Does your organisation use roaming profiles?

nope. no roaming. borrow a laptop with VPN if you need to login on the go, we have powerbook whateveryoucallits and dells.

I think what it comes down to is that OSX has been x64 for a while, long before it became the norm on PC's... which means when it comes to working on print design/multimedia projects machines with more GeeBees of RAMs that Apple provided was beneficial.

That all went to shit when:

1) apple switched to Intel architecture

2) windows didn't treat x64 as an afterthought

[bozodos]

yah no roaming profiles = shitload less dramas. unfortunately we aren't going to ever convince those who matter otherwise, because everyone is so used to having their shit replicate wherever they go. some of the users even have the gall to whinge about a 1gig data quota, despite the fact that we have to back it all up, and store it on a SAN!

[paulR32gtr]

I think what it comes down to is that OSX has been x64 for a while, long before it became the norm on PC's... which means when it comes to working on print design/multimedia projects machines with more GeeBees of RAMs that Apple provided was beneficial.

That all went to shit when:

1) apple switched to Intel architecture

2) windows didn't treat x64 as an afterthought

This is true.

However controlling the hardware and operating system means transitioning to x64 was a relative breeze for Apple. Microsoft with its what 90% odd OS market share at the time, and zero hardware market share always needed to consider that x64 would require gargantuan 32 bit backwards compatibility for applications, and 64 bit drivers from thousands of hardware vendors (that lets face it often struggle even getting out reasonable 32 bit drivers). The press for releasing something that didn't work with everybody's favorite little 3rd party apps or hardware etc could have really cost them huge marketshare, only for being seen to be doing the right thing for progress - and only for a small subset of their customers.

With print design applications being such a staple of Apple's compatible product suite, and being the industry standard - they would always have prioritising excelling with these memory intensive apps. Microsoft was never going to take it over easily, so prioritised remaining as compatible as possible with the open market.

Don't get me wrong I am no Microsoft fanboy - I am the first to criticise any OS or agressive associated licensing. But it seems the tables have turned and now the limelight is on Apple, and you guessed it they are acting just like Microsoft did but on a grander scale because they (try to) control the hardware too.

[Jay11]

Divhunter, you have never owned a Mac either I take it?

[*LOACH*]

. I think that people are all too quick to be brainwashed by the clever marketing techniques coming from what is actually a quite sinister and anti competetive company.

Absolutely agree, it is only decades of market pressure that forced Apple to start allowing competition into their hardware/software, whereas PCs have always been a lot more about freedom for people to make what they want and Microsoft supplies the OS.

I dont pretend to have the experience of the network admin guys on this forum but I can not think of any positive experiences I have had with them.

As far as performance goes when I was at Uni 2 years ago it was almost impossible to get a seat at a PC because everyone wanted them but you could always get a seat at a Mac because waiting for minutes for an application to start on a Mac was somewhat comparable to the pain I imagine would come from driving a 3 inch nail into your kneecap. Even though they were newer than the PCs they would take forever to load something as simple as Mozilla Firefox.

One of the more satisfying things I have done in my life was buying an ipod nano rip off for $40 on the net and never having to use itunes with it. It was like getting to throw a shoe at Steve Jobs. Awseome.

[Jay11]

That's funny coz it's the opposite at my uni.

The pc's take a good 5 mins just to start up, everyone uses the Macs coz they're much faster.

It's the same at work too, strange.

[bozodos]

haha and for some reason, on all imacs, you have to hold the power button for like 30 seconds until the f**ker actually responds to tell you it's alive! the os is somewhat quicker to load, proably because they use EFI not BIOS when they turn on. applications are no difference imo, probably slower.

[Jay11]

all 30 Mac's do that?

That's funny coz my iMac and all the ones I work with you only press the power button once and it turns on,

Just coz it doesn't make that hideous fan noise that most towers make so that you definitely know it's on....

[bozodos]

yeah well they sit there with a black screen so you don't know if they're on or not, and it seems that if you press the button for too long they don't turn on

The reason for less noise is that they use laptop components to fit in to the small form factor. They generate an awesome amount of heat due to this as well

[iseekool]

Problem I see with MAC is that you must use MAC hardware - I find that a tad unfair especially for majority of people out there that just want to use their computers for web, music and some movie watching - buying expensive MAC hardware is not worth it - no matter how good or bad it is. The bottom line is MACs are expensive.

Sure MACs have a nice style to them with alloy this, stainless that - but really its all for wank/rice factor. Nice to the eyes - but doesn't serve any real performance/productivity increase. The hardware is quite average to say the least.

Reasons why people have minimal issues with MACs is because hardware and software is exclusive and not open to third parties - think gaming consoles.

UI is a matter of personal preference - so this will be open to discussion - doesn't matter if you like MAC/Win or Linux. End of the day - I find that all the OS have way too much un-needed and performance taxing eye candy.

@Boz - Roaming profiles suck and ask for more troubles (doesn't matter what platform) - The company I work for use folder re-direction and have GPs in place to ensure desktops cannot be overly customized - which is just as good and faster.

I think the head if your IT department needs a good kick in the head for allowing roaming profiles on Government computers.

- Bad for network performance.

- Bad for security if a PC or laptop gets physically stolen.

- Slow to load upon inital logon = frustrated users

- Sometimes does not load properly at all

MACs seem to work fine in AD domains - but yes printer drivers/scanner/multifunction are bitch and sometimes non-exsistent.

People that say software such as Adobe working better on MAC are currently wrong (maybe in the past they are correct) - They actually work better on Windows 7 64 bit once you have an nVidia based card and leverage CUDA technology - With the money you save on not buying a MAC you can get a kick ass nVidia quadro/geforce card, lots of RAM, RAID setup and i5/i7. Unfortunately Apple's offerings for performance hardware is poor.

[bozodos]

I wish that our arts types would see it this way; unfortunately they are dyed in the wool Apple fanboys when it comes to such things, and also indoctrinate their students as such.

We use roaming profiles due to the amount of users who use more than one computer; having a generic or a local profile would cause a lot more problems than it would solve in terms of user generated data.

We also run gigabit ethernet with fibre backbones to minimise start up lag, it's only really an issue on the reletively small amount of Pentium 4 machines we have floating around.

We do have some issues with profiles not loading properly, but myself and the other helpdesk operators have the knowledge to reset profiles fairly easily.

You would cringe at the fact that we have profiles roaming between sites over the WAN links we have and DFS replication to every site (not for every user, but all group drives and users who travel a lot) LOL.

As for security, all user files are synced back to the servers on logoff, and for student users, their local profile data is erased automatically. We are in the preliminary stages of implementing drive encryption between all sites.

[iseekool]

I wish that our arts types would see it this way; unfortunately they are dyed in the wool Apple fanboys when it comes to such things, and also indoctrinate their students as such.

We use roaming profiles due to the amount of users who use more than one computer; having a generic or a local profile would cause a lot more problems than it would solve in terms of user generated data.

We also run gigabit ethernet with fibre backbones to minimise start up lag, it's only really an issue on the reletively small amount of Pentium 4 machines we have floating around.

We do have some issues with profiles not loading properly, but myself and the other helpdesk operators have the knowledge to reset profiles fairly easily.

You would cringe at the fact that we have profiles roaming between sites over the WAN links we have and DFS replication to every site (not for every user, but all group drives and users who travel a lot) LOL.

As for security, all user files are synced back to the servers on logoff, and for student users, their local profile data is erased automatically. We are in the preliminary stages of implementing drive encryption between all sites.

Yep stongly agree. MAC users (even the non technical) need to open their eyes and realise that MACs are running overpriced average PC hardware with nice asthetics.

[bozodos]

even though they dual boot, the teachers don't inform their students, and discouraging from booting Windows on them, despite the amounts of problems they have.

That's graphic designers for you, had the same kind of pig headed know it all attitude from them in the printing industry.

OSX is also bloody hard to do any technical or diagnostic work on, there's no event viewer here!