Re: MacBook vs.???

Faisal N Jawdat
2007-07-03T05:01:55Z

On Jul 2, 2007, at 11:59 PM, DyingToLearn wrote:
> I don''t think I have a problem with the RAM, but I''d like
the opinion
> of a MacBook user: Will 1GB RAM be enough for Rails development,
> watching DVDs, surfing the web, and instant messaging?

No.

(IMHO)

That said, if you want to buy more RAM there are third-party RAM
merchants (crucial.com, transintl.com) which can at least bring the
cost down.

> Can I format a USB hard drive so that it is readable and writable
> by both the MacBook I am looking at and Windows XP Pro (and
> preferably Ubuntu 7.04)? If so, I don''t care about the HD space.

"maybe"?  IIRC OS X can read and write to FAT32 volumes.  I
haven''t
tried it, though.

but...

> Here is the really trick part of the question: Both my wife and I
> love Ubuntu. Both of us have used macs and don''t like the UI. So I
> will almost definitely erasing whatever OS comes with the laptop I
> buy and instead installing Ubuntu.

In that case a Mac laptop is just a PC running Ubuntu.  It has some
niceties, but most of the magic is in the software.  If you don''t
like the software then you just paid a lot for hardware you can often
get elsewhere for cheaper.

As to the prior question of what you can format the disk to:  if
you''re running Ubuntu then the question is not whether you can format
a volume so the Mac and Windows can both read it, the question is
whether you can format a volume so Ubuntu and Windows can both read it.

Of course this all assumes you *can* install Ubuntu on a Mac.  I
haven''t tried it (well, other than in Parallels) nor heard of anyone
trying it, so I don''t know.

> Given the above, my decision should be based primarily on the
> hardware''s price/performance/reliability. Should I buy the
MacBook?

Are you carrying it around with you a lot?  One thing to be said for
the MacBooks is that they tend to be fairly rugged -- they''re a
descendant of the iBook which seems to be designed to be used by
drunken college students.

Otherwise you''re basically buying a PC so you should be able to
compare price/performance straight up.

> -Lighter is highly valuable - the MacBook is lighter than all the
> PCs i noted

There are dramatically lighter laptops than the MacBooks -- look at
some of the Toshiba and Panasonic ultralights.  Dell has a 3 lb''ish
laptop.  There are rumors that Apple is going to come out with an
ultralight sometime soon sometime maybe.  These rumors have been
around since just about forever, though.

> -I will be doing rails development at least part time. Is it
> possible to dual boot Ubuntu and Mac OS X? If so, considering that
> I have tried and generally don''t like the OS, how valuable is
> booting into Mac OS X just for rails development? Currently I use
> jedit. It''s been great, but I don''t have the time to add
all the
> shortcuts that seem to be built-in to TextMate

I''m guessing it''s possible to dual boot but that''s
just a guess -- I
haven''t done it, nor do I know anyone that''s tried.  As I
mentioned,
I don''t even know of anyone installing Ubuntu as a primary OS.

Dual booting for nothing but development seems like kind of a pain --
I wouldn''t want to do it but YMMV.

> -Does the MacBook I am looking at come in black? I couldn''t figure
> it out from the apple website. This isn''t that important, but
black
> is much cooler.

The higher end MacBook comes in black.  When they first came out I
compared and you could equalize the feature sets at which point black
cost $150 more.  I''ve heard that premium has dropped to $50 but I
haven''t checked.

> -My wife will KILL me if I make her use Mac OS X. So far I have
> assumed that I could install Ubuntu on it, is that assumption true?

Someone else will have to chime in on this.

> PS. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not make this into a Mac is better than
> Windows. My laptop will not have Windows (except if I have to test in
> Internet Explorer 6/7).

One way in which a Mac will be better than Windows (and Ubuntu) is
that you can run a VM system on Mac OS X (Parallels or VMWare) and
then put Windows and Linux in a VM on top.  This lets you have
Windows, Linux and Mac browsers up *at the same time* to test your
Rails app.

-faisal