Thinking of making the switch from MS to Mac OSX for use at home since I am more familliar with UNIX maintenance and upkeep. One reason is that I feel it would be more user friendly for my wife than Linux but offer more control than MS (MS registry is a joke).
Also, I require some development tools such as Perl, C, and various other scripting apps for work use. Is there any trouble porting between PC and Mac? Does Mac OSX ship with a SSH/Telnet client like PuTTY?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Thinking of making the switch from MS to Mac OSX for use at home since I am more familiar with UNIX maintenance and upkeep. One reason is that I feel it would be more user friendly for my wife than Linux but offer more control than MS (MS registry is a joke).
Also, I require some development tools such as Perl, C, and various other scripting apps for work use. Is there any trouble porting between PC and Mac? Does Mac OSX ship with a SSH/Telnet client like PuTTY?
Any tips, caveats?[/quote]
Former Linux/software developer guy. As far as general sys admin stuff, it’s mostly irrelevant. It just takes a little time to figure out the “mac way” of doing things like adding users, sharing files, etc. Mac is definitely more spouse-friendly.
The ssh client is built in. I use it once in a while from the built in terminal application (Terminal.app) to connect to work machines.
ubuntu linux. If your wife can’t handle that, she probably shouldn’t be using a computer. Or anything pointy or sharp for that matter.
In all seriousness though, ubuntu is thoroughly impressive. It’s easily usable by your average non-techie yet provides us geeks with a fully functional linux system. And the best part, if you try it out and don’t like it and want to go with the Mac anyway… You haven’t wasted any money.
[quote]m0dd3r wrote:
ubuntu linux. If your wife can’t handle that, she probably shouldn’t be using a computer. Or anything pointy or sharp for that matter.
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Unfortunately, it’s not just about ease of use it’s the fact that her perception of a computer ( because of the “Gates’ Grip”) is that it must look and feel like MS…you know, solitaire, that wack-ass mine sweeper game, and all the special olympics applications that make it “neat-o”?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
m0dd3r wrote:
ubuntu linux. If your wife can’t handle that, she probably shouldn’t be using a computer. Or anything pointy or sharp for that matter.
Unfortunately, it’s not just about ease of use it’s the fact that her perception of a computer ( because of the “Gates’ Grip”) is that it must look and feel like MS…you know, solitaire, that wack-ass mine sweeper game, and all the special olympics applications that make it “neat-o”?[/quote]
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
m0dd3r wrote:
ubuntu linux. If your wife can’t handle that, she probably shouldn’t be using a computer. Or anything pointy or sharp for that matter.
Unfortunately, it’s not just about ease of use it’s the fact that her perception of a computer ( because of the “Gates’ Grip”) is that it must look and feel like MS…you know, solitaire, that wack-ass mine sweeper game, and all the special olympics applications that make it “neat-o”?[/quote]
Honestly, I’d still go with ubuntu. If she’s expecting things to look and feel like windows, it’s fairly easy to customize gnome or kde (I’ev even got one box running linux that looks and feels like an OS X box). A lot of those little games and whatnot are included in kde installs now, they just have different names (usually just add a ‘k’ to the beginning). If anything, the jump to Mac OS X is usually pretty unfriendly to your typical windows user.
Honestly, I’d still go with ubuntu. If she’s expecting things to look and feel like windows, it’s fairly easy to customize gnome or kde (I’ev even got one box running linux that looks and feels like an OS X box). A lot of those little games and whatnot are included in kde installs now, they just have different names (usually just add a ‘k’ to the beginning). If anything, the jump to Mac OS X is usually pretty unfriendly to your typical windows user.
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I completely agree. I’ve used a variety of Linux GUIs at work, all of which have been much more comfortable than OS X. My parents bought a G5 with a cinema display, but I can’t stand using it. As smoothly as it runs, I’d rather use one of the two Windows PCs. I have no intention of familiarizing myself with any Mac OS to the extent that I’m as comfortable with it as I am Windows. OS X feels back asswards.