# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Mac Vs. Pc

## Beef Jerky

Mac Vs. PC... the epic battle between fanboys and girls that has been raging since the dawn of operating systems.

Personally, I prefer a PC (Windows) as I think Macs are useless for what I use PCs for (gaming, anything but movie and photo development). I do not consider myself a fanboy. However I do enjoy having a good laugh at Mac fanboys, and Mac ripoffs. Here are some videos:

Mac fails (language)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVwbhsqEyNI

Mac.. wins? (language)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf903qFn0OI

Compilation of Mac Vs. PC ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ReS_ur4Kc

I personally think this Kost guy is a prime example of a fanboy.

As I said above, I truly have nothing against Macs. I just, personally, have no real use for them. But, I am no Windows fanboy. I do not have Windows Vista yet or snything like that  :tongue2: 



Mac Vs. Windows

Discuss.

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## pj

I&#39;ve owned and used both... stuck with PCs for a variety of reasons - mostly money-related.  I&#39;m enough of a geek to keep Windoze running smoothly, even with kids in the house.  

If I didn&#39;t know what I was doing, we&#39;d probably have Macs.

So... let the games begin.  I&#39;ll be sitting over there with a bottle of (de-alcoholized) merlot and a good cigar.

**edit**

Oh yeah... my servers run Fedora on pc&#39;s too, and I&#39;ve been playing with ubuntu on this laptop to "stretch its legs" with the 64 bit processors.

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## Beef Jerky

> I&#39;ve owned and used both... stuck with PCs for a variety of reasons - mostly money-related.  I&#39;m enough of a geek to keep Windoze running smoothly, even with kids in the house.  
> 
> If I didn&#39;t know what I was doing, we&#39;d probably have Macs.
> 
> So... let the games begin.  I&#39;ll be sitting over there with a bottle of (de-alcoholized) merlot and a good cigar.
> 
> **edit**
> 
> Oh yeah... my servers run Fedora on pc&#39;s too, and I&#39;ve been playing with ubuntu on this laptop to "stretch its legs" with the 64 bit processors.[/b]



HOLY SHIT YOUR AVATAR MOVES&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;   :Eek:   :Eek:   :Eek:   :Eek:

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## pj

> HOLY SHIT YOUR AVATAR MOVES&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;     [/b]



Only for those who care enough to pay attention.

*grin*

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## MSG

This is how I see it:

Mac&#39;s are the simplistic, easy-to-use, very nice-looking computers that work fine most of the time for relatively simple tasks. Unfortunately not many people develop for Mac&#39;s, they are notoriously incompatible with software.

Linux is the hardcore nerd OS that is highly configurable (to the point of being able to recompile everything right down to the _printer driver_ if you see fit), but also harder to use/maintain/keep running, and therefore not exactly suited for the average computer user. Applications for Linux tend to be underdeveloped and unstable.

Windows is the happy medium in between the two, and I use it for the sole reason that it allows me to get stuff done. Software is readily available for whatever I want to do (despite what they say, Video editing is not any better on the Mac), and because I don&#39;t have to spend all my time simply getting the OS to work (Ever notice how much time Linux users spend configuring, fixing, and maintaining their operating system? Yeah.)

I&#39;d be happy to switch back to Linux one day, just to see how far they&#39;ve come along, but as for now, I&#39;m fine with Windows. As for Mac&#39;s, I don&#39;t have much to say about them. If you&#39;ve got the money, and all you do every day is log on, check your email and look at cat pictures, then go ahead and get one - you&#39;ll be happy. If you&#39;re an application developer or a 3D modeler, you know what to do.

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## ninja9578

Macs are easy to use and dominate the artistic market and because of core Open GL use, games are moving over to it.  The advanced middle man core technology that will be in leopard will actually make most games run faster on the Mac platform.  Macs are expensive because they are high end, other than the mini mac they don&#39;t make cheap computers.

Linux is mainly used for servers because they are the most secure OS, but very difficult to use.  I have Ubuntu running on a laptop at home and use it mainly for programming.

Windows dominates the office market because of MS Office.  Most software comes out for Windows first so that&#39;s where people go.

If you are asking because you are thinking of getting a new computer, get a Mac.  Microsoft just released Vista which is the least stable version of windows in a long time and most computer are preloaded with it.  

As MSG said:
Developer: Linux
3d modeler / artist: Mac
Business: PC

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## Beef Jerky

> 3d modeler / artist: Mac[/b]




Yeah. No. Mac&#39;s = no touchy for me. Plus, people say they have the best looking GUI... to me, Mac&#39;s GUI looks disgusting. And for gaming, OS X nor Linux have DX10, and probably won&#39;t for a long while. Window&#39;s is the most popular OS because it is a GENERAL OS. It can be used for everything, and dominates two major markets (business and gaming). And again, with gaming, Mac&#39;s have very little games on them. Games released nowadays RARELY are Mac usable. Just picked up the closest game box to me, no Mac compatibility. I just picked up another game (UT2k4) and it actually supports Linux, but not Mac. Mac =/= gaming machine, regardless of it&#39;s speeds. OpenGL < DirectX as far as gaming is concerned. In developers opinions, anyway.







> If you are asking because you are thinking of building a new computer, don&#39;t get a Mac, because they are pre-built and un-upgradable.. Microsoft just released Vista which is the least stable version of windows in a long time and I know this even though I probably have never used Vista before, I just HEARD IT ON DIGG SO IT MUST BE TRUE...[/b]



Fixed.  :tongue2:  But no, I am not building a new PC.

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## MSG

> Microsoft just released Vista which is the least stable version of windows in a long time[/b]





Screenshot taken of my uptime 6 days before I finally got a power outage. Every program I&#39;ve installed has worked fine without a reboot. The only reason it&#39;s ever off/restarted is when I change hardware (which I do frequently), have a power outage, or when I&#39;m moving furniture/cleaning etc.

TIP: Don&#39;t keep a server computer (or any computer for that matter) on the floor - This thing is a dust magnet&#33;

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beef Jerky)</div>



> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ninja9578)







> I just HEARD IT ON DIGG SO IT MUST BE TRUE...[/b]



[/b][/quote]

Haha, God I hate digg...

Are they still obsessing over that whole "Net Neutrality" thing?

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## ninja9578

I must have an older laptop, mine crashed every twenty minutes.

OpenGL < DirectX?

My school teaches every single graphics and gaming class in OpenGL.  Have you ever programmed in DirectX?  DirectX is great and I use it occasionally, but these are reasons that I use OpenGL:

DirectX requires loads of references and references in both C and C++, while OpenGL uses standard C scripts that almost always use pointers.

OpenGL is up to date very quickly.  DirectX comes out with a new version every year or so, which is slower than the cards come out.  OpenGL has more support for extensions for the new cards and they come out immediately.

In C is difficult to use extensions for multiple new cards, but with C++ overloading it&#39;s very easy.

It&#39;s crossplatform:  Windows, Mac, Linux, PS3, Java VM, and they are working on an XBox 360 port, DirectX is only Xbox and Windows.

OpenGL and Apple teamed up to make a new API that takes advantage of the new multicore processors so in many games it runs faster.  (I haven&#39;t used this yet, but the demos are amazing.)

I&#39;ll use DirectX for certain things, but for general 3D programming I use OpenGL.

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## Stalker

> I must have an older laptop, mine crashed every twenty minutes.
> 
> OpenGL < DirectX?
> 
> My school teaches every single graphics and gaming class in OpenGL.  Have you ever programmed in DirectX?  DirectX is great and I use it occasionally, but these are reasons that I use OpenGL:
> 
> DirectX requires loads of references and references in both C and C++, while OpenGL uses standard C scripts that almost always use pointers.
> 
> OpenGL is up to date very quickly.  DirectX comes out with a new version every year or so, which is slower than the cards come out.  OpenGL has more support for extensions for the new cards and they come out immediately.
> ...



IMNSHO OpenGL is a real pain. You need to check and load extensions for pretty much everything. Sure, extensions can come out fast for new features. (Although usually the support for a feature in Direct3D comes before the actual cards that support it does.) 
The structure with an abundance of calls to do even the simplest thing is very inefficient, and personally I don&#39;t like it. (Could give examples but I won&#39;t) (There&#39;s a reason they dumped that layout in the newer, mobile, version of OpenGL.)
And the documentation...one can say a lot of bad things about microsoft, but they definately know how to write good documentation and examples for their SDKs.
I use both, through an abstraction layer that reduces the difference in using them to a single parameter in the init-call (well, shaders are different but that&#39;s a whole other story) but when I need to do something with the API I prefer Direct3D.

To get back to the first part, with "OpenGL < DirectX" then that is definately true no matter how you look at it. Remember that DirectX is a whole lot more than just Direct3D. If you want to compare then it&#39;s between OpenGL and D3D.

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## Beef Jerky

> Are they still obsessing over that whole "Net Neutrality" thing?[/b]




Noooo idea  ::D:

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## Pyrofan1

> OS X nor Linux have DX10, and probably won&#39;t for a long while[/b]



Maybe because DirectX is a Microsoft invention.

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## Beef Jerky

> Maybe because DirectX is a Microsoft invention.[/b]




Well, obviously. I never said it wasn&#39;t   ::content::   :tongue2:

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## bluefinger

For me... I use Windows because of games... that and I&#39;m allergic to Macs. Seriously... I break out in rashes, have fits of sneezing, just by being within the vicinity of a Mac.

Nah, just kidding. Macs are just... not my thing. At least with PCs I can custom-build. I do all my 3D art in Windows (Don&#39;t care what people say otherwise), also a bit of texturing and such on Photoshop, etc. Makes no difference with me. That and I have a nice dual monitor configuration. I don&#39;t know if Macs can do so (though I&#39;ve never went out of my way to check), but if they can&#39;t, then even more reason I stick with Windows, since dual monitors is such a useful thing. Not for gaming, primarily for my uni work, such as programming and 3D modelling, even surfing on the web, whilst also chatting on IMs and listening to music... all done without having to cycle through different windows. Linux... again, lack of gaming support means it&#39;ll be a while before I think of getting it, and even then, I&#39;ll probably dual-boot it with Windows.

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## ninja9578

Macs can run Windows through both dual booting and Parallels.

I didn&#39;t know that there was a Photoshop for PC, when did that happen?  (If it was like 10 years ago then be kind  :tongue2: )

Yes, I was comparing D3D to OpenGL.  DirectX does it all while OSX uses OpenGL for 3D, OpenAL for sound, and PDFs for 2D, which honestly can be annoying, but I&#39;ve gotten used to it.  

Yes Macs can use multiple monitors (or you can just get a 30" Cinema display.)  <- Expensive as hell.

I&#39;ve also heard rumors that Macs will be coming with OpenGL Embedded chips like the PS3 which will make it even faster.  I think it was a Macworld that I saw it, but can&#39;t be sure of that.

My problem with DirectX is that as fasr as I know it was designed with C++ in mind.  I like using C for large portions of programs because it is almost always faster and always has a smaller footprint.  If I&#39;m doing something that requires a nice interface I end  up using C++, but C for most of the complicated stuff since C++ compilers can compile C without that much trouble.

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## pj

> I didn&#39;t know that there was a Photoshop for PC, when did that happen?  (If it was like 10 years ago then be kind )[/b]



OK - sit down then.

I&#39;m pretty sure it&#39;s been more than 10 years.  I think 2.5 was the first PC release.  I don&#39;t remember the year of that one, but it seems like early to mid 90&#39;s would be about right.

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## bluefinger

> I didn&#39;t know that there was a Photoshop for PC, when did that happen?  (If it was like 10 years ago then be kind )[/b]



There&#39;s been a Photoshop for PC for a while now... same with Flash and Dreamweaver, and the like. I don&#39;t see why image/video-editing software should be restricted to certain OS&#39;s. I&#39;m just glad I can use professional software in order to get on with my university course.

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## MSG

Yeah, I&#39;ve had to do many video editing projects on the Mac - there&#39;s no advantage whatsoever. Final Cut Pro had many limitations, one of the biggest downfalls was the inability to import an image sequence as footage (industry standard for visual effects compositing). Sure, Adobe is available for the Mac as well, but why bother?

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## Replicon

I love the "mac vs PC" commercials, cause they&#39;re so true to reality: The PC looks like a successful, well-established accountant who has his shortfalls, but gets lots done, while the mac guy looks like an unemployed arts graduate who sits in a coffee shop and writes haiku on his laptop all day  ::D: .

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## bluefinger

> I love the "mac vs PC" commercials, cause they&#39;re so true to reality: The PC looks like a successful, well-established accountant who has his shortfalls, but gets lots done, while the mac guy looks like an unemployed arts graduate who sits in a coffee shop and writes haiku on his laptop all day .[/b]



But I&#39;m no accountant... I&#39;m also a lazy-ass student, who plays a whole load of games on my PC, and do quite a bit of design, all on a PC instead of a Mac... if anything, I&#39;m nothing like the image Apple tries to convey about PC users   ::roll::

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## ninja9578

I always though that the two characters were supposed to represent Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  The PC guy is portrayed as serious while the Mac does look like the kind of guy that sits in coffee shops writing poety.  I remember multiple interviews where Steve Jobs accused Bill Gates (indirectly) of having no culture.  I think the most common thing he references is the multiple fonts that apple invented.  I&#39;m sure that you can find them on youtube, I believe he mentions that in a CNN interview and his graduation speech to Stanford.  I think they are trying to portray the PC as a drone and the Mac as someone who likes to ?Think Different  ::-P: 

If it was 23 years ago we&#39;d see this:

*Oh my god thats the worst Photoshop I&#39;ve ever seen, it&#39;s like he didn&#39;t even try*

I&#39;ve never used Final Cut Pro, but if you mean what I think you do by import sequences of images then the iMovie program that comes standard with every Mac will do that.  I&#39;m thinking of like a slideshow or stop motion sequence, if that&#39;s not right then please elaborate.  Quicktime Pro can also make stop motion.

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## Replicon

Here&#39;s one that wasn&#39;t posted (I think):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4

Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs

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## 2Fruits

Wahahahah&#33; Replicon, that video is pure gold&#33; It does give a hilarious take on both sides...

But err.. back to the topic.
My first 3ish computers were macs as a kid, loved making stuff on them. Then got a crappy Windows w/ 98 installed. Then got XP loved it. Then got crappy acer laptop w/ xp pro. Then got a wonderful sony vaio laptop and have just been sent a Vista upgrade pack.
Loved macs but wouldn&#39;t go back now that I have used windows for so long.

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## Replicon

I think my biggest complaint about MacOS is that it&#39;s kind of a lying, deceitful OS. This experience comes from before OSX, where they FINALLY realized that the only way they&#39;ll get their thing to not suck is if they base it on an already-existing OS that doesn&#39;t suck  ::D: .

Windows is easy. They advertize it as being easy, and it is. It&#39;s also kind of annoying a lot of the time, and not really useful to the power users (unless you install cygwin or something). So in summary, it&#39;s advertized as being simple, and it IS simple, and stuff always breaks on it but what can you do.

Linux is difficult. There&#39;s a learning curve to it. It doesn&#39;t lie about it - everyone KNOWS that it&#39;s mostly for power users. It&#39;s usually highly stable, doesn&#39;t break a lot, but... you have to know what you&#39;re doing.

The older macs... well, they were advertized as "just working" like windows, but in reality, you needed to know what you were doing. The best example of it is, there are apps that would just not start. The window would come up, and bam, get zapped away. No error message, nothing. "Just works" my ass. Eventually, I found out that it happened because the default setting for available virtual memory was something ridiculously low, like 30MB or so. Do you honestly think the average duh-duh computer user could have figured that out on their own? At least if there were an error message that said "your dumbass OS set a ridiculously low default VM, go here to change it", there would be a starting point... oi&#33;

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## ninja9578

I never had problems with older Macs, but they were always behind Windows.  Apple didn&#39;t have anybody who though originally, they just tried to keep up with PCs.  In 1999 Steve Jobs came back to Apple and brought some of his guys with him and suddenly they shot ahead of Windows and have stayed there.  

Windows is easy?  It still uses a registry as it&#39;s backbone and the DLLs are a mess.  Programs might have files and DLLs scattered all over the hard drive which is very confusing.  Windows still doesn&#39;t differenciate between closing a window and closing a program.  Apple has built a good reputation of being very intuative, and because of the iPod&#39;s ease of use more and more people are realizing it.

Macs are stable, as much so as Linux.  The underlying kernel is UNIX, which has been around longer than any other operating system that is still used so the bugs have been worked out.  Encountering an error is rare in OSX, but when they happen you do get an error message.

The older Mac OS&#39;s memory management sucked, but the new UNIX bases memory management will allow a program to have as much memory as it needs.  OSX, like Linux uses lazy page swapping so while it may take a little longer to load a program than Windows, while it is running it will run faster.

Base it on an operating that doesn&#39;t suck?  I assume that you are talking about makeing UNIX the kernel?  Um... Rumors say that Windows Vienna will also have a UNIX core.

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## Ynot

> Rumors say that Windows Vienna will also have a UNIX core.[/b]



now that I&#39;ve got to see

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## Stalker

> Windows still doesn&#39;t differenciate between closing a window and closing a program.[/b]



Actually it does. There&#39;s a big difference.





> The underlying kernel is UNIX, which has been around longer than any other operating system that is still used so the bugs have been worked out.[/b]



Old &#33;= good. You need to implement new techologies in the kernel, and that introduces bugs. Besides, probably quite a few mainframes still running ancient pre-unix OSs around   ::mrgreen::  

And on the topic of error messages in OSX...

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## ninja9578

I don&#39;t mean within the OS itself, I mean in the GUI.  If there is then I don&#39;t know how to do it.  Tell me and I&#39;ll retract my statement.  How do you close a program in Microsoft Windows?

As for Vienna having a UNIX kernel I misunderstood something that I read, Vienna will still have the NT operating system.  The UNIX system that they are dabbling in is called Singularity, it is a microkernel that is based on UNIX that uses a single process.

Bugs from new technology do get sorted out in OSX.  There are tons of geeks out there double checking the code, it&#39;s one of the advantages of being open source like Linux.


In response to that Yes/No question with the Ok button:  BIOS error: keyboard not found, press F1 to continue.  :tongue2:

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## Stalker

> I don&#39;t mean within the OS itself, I mean in the GUI.  If there is then I don&#39;t know how to do it.  Tell me and I&#39;ll retract my statement.  How do you close a program in Microsoft Windows?[/b]



Same way as in most OSs: If it doesn&#39;t have an attached GUI that offers the option (a window) then the only way is through the list of active processes. Same as *nix (pgrep whatever | xargs kill -9)





> Bugs from new technology do get sorted out in OSX.  There are tons of geeks out there double checking the code, it&#39;s one of the advantages of being open source like Linux.[/b]



Yes, bugs get sorted. Just as in other OSs. What I meant was you can&#39;t use the fact that it&#39;s old as some sort of measurement of how good the code-quality is. However, OSx is _not_ open source. Oh, and who cares about Linux? BSD ftw  :wink2: 





> In response to that Yes/No question with the Ok button:  BIOS error: keyboard not found, press F1 to continue. [/b]



Yeah, that&#39;s a nice one. Classic  ::D:  (On a more serious note it wasn&#39;t the fact that the box only has an Ok that I found most interesting with it; it&#39;s that an OS that is sold as being user friendly allows both case sensitive and case insensitive file systems causing very confusing messages like that. (And I know windows has plenty of them as well (cd in floppy drive...), I&#39;ve never been entirely serious))

[edit]
I should add that I don&#39;t have anything against macs, or OSX. I just happen to not have anything against Windows (modern ones preferably, nt-kernel) either.

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## ninja9578

In OSX pressing Apple+Q quits a program, which is a lot easier than going through every window one by one and closing them.  Even if you go to quit in the menu that still just closes one window.  And sometimes I want to close all windows but leave the program running, Windows still can&#39;t do that.





> OSx is not open source[/b]



Um... Darwin&#39;s (OSX&#39;s core) source code: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/

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## Replicon

> Base it on an operating that doesn&#39;t suck?  I assume that you are talking about makeing UNIX the kernel?  Um... Rumors say that Windows Vienna will also have a UNIX core.[/b]



Correct. All my Mac experience is with the pre-OSX models, and was noting that the UNIX core idea was a big win for them. As for Vienna using a unix core... where have you heard that? Not disputing it, though I&#39;d be very entertained to see it happen. Microsoft would never live that down  ::D: .

Random OSX question: does it offer a really good package management system, like some of the linux distros out there? Can&#39;t beat the "apt-get install" approach to installing your software  :smiley: .

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## Stalker

> In OSX pressing Apple+Q quits a program, which is a lot easier than going through every window one by one and closing them.  Even if you go to quit in the menu that still just closes one window.  And sometimes I want to close all windows but leave the program running, Windows still can&#39;t do that.[/b]



A bit of research seem to indicate that it&#39;s not something built in, but just an application "standard" to quit on it. (Base on a couple of apps that doesn&#39;t follow that standard and thus doesn&#39;t quit on command-q (unless changing some system preferences) If so then it&#39;s no different than alt+f4, which is considered good standard to quit the application when you receive, but it&#39;s still up to the app.
(Checked some more. Yep, it&#39;s just a shortcut that runs a command in the app. Requires it to behave nicely.)





> Um... Darwin&#39;s (OSX&#39;s core) source code: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/[/b]



Oops  ::doh::

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## ninja9578

Alt+F4 closes one window, not the entire program.

Command+Q is recommened by Apple and I don&#39;t have any programs that don&#39;t use it (Except for X11 programs, but that&#39;s different.)  Actually, it&#39;s the same deal as Windows, as a programmer I know that pressing the X button on the top right doesn&#39;t cause Windows to close the program, it has to be coded in:  Advanced languages do it automatically, but C doesn&#39;t.





> Random OSX question: does it offer a really good package management system, like some of the linux distros out there? Can&#39;t beat the "apt-get install" approach to installing your software .[/b]



Actually you can, OSX has the simplest application installing out there: Drag and drop it into Applications.  I can&#39;t think of anything easier than that.  Occasioanlly you&#39;ll get a program with a setup program (iTunes), but it&#39;s rare.  As for packages, once you download it Apple&#39;s installer will automatically start and configure everything for you.

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## MSG

> I love the "mac vs PC" commercials, cause they&#39;re so true to reality: The PC looks like a successful, well-established accountant who has his shortfalls, but gets lots done, while the mac guy looks like an unemployed arts graduate who sits in a coffee shop and writes haiku on his laptop all day .[/b]



Apple advertises on an emotional level - Macs have a very cult-like following to them because they see their Mac as more than a computer. I have no emotional connection to my Windows PC, however, and that&#39;s just the way I like it. Apple already tried the "It just works" ad campaign back with the "switch" advertisements, and it didn&#39;t seem to work very well. The iPod was a saving grace for Apple.






> I&#39;ve never used Final Cut Pro, but if you mean what I think you do by import sequences of images then the iMovie program that comes standard with every Mac will do that.  I&#39;m thinking of like a slideshow or stop motion sequence, if that&#39;s not right then please elaborate.  Quicktime Pro can also make stop motion.[/b]



Well I mean importing an image sequence as footage, frame-by-frame like a filmstrip. Used specifically in visual effects compositing, it&#39;s pretty pointless for live action footage. The advantage of rendering to separate images per frame is that you now have lossless video, you don&#39;t have to worry about frame rates, and with some formats you get a nice clean alpha layer that you don&#39;t have to render separately.

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## Replicon

> Actually you can, OSX has the simplest application installing out there: Drag and drop it into Applications.  I can&#39;t think of anything easier than that.  Occasioanlly you&#39;ll get a program with a setup program (iTunes), but it&#39;s rare.  As for packages, once you download it Apple&#39;s installer will automatically start and configure everything for you.[/b]



But doesn&#39;t that imply that you have to go and download the thing yourself? And then find it in some window, and drag it somewhere? The whole beauty of debian (and I think the newer RPM) is that you can configure it to point at a number of package repositories, and you just need to know the name of the package. Type it in, and you&#39;re done. No annoying dragging, and clumsy windowing necessary. Long live the CLI&#33;&#33;&#33;

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## MSG

> But doesn&#39;t that imply that you have to go and download the thing yourself? And then find it in some window, and drag it somewhere? The whole beauty of debian (and I think the newer RPM) is that you can configure it to point at a number of package repositories, and you just need to know the name of the package. Type it in, and you&#39;re done. No annoying dragging, and clumsy windowing necessary. Long live the CLI&#33;&#33;&#33;[/b]



There are major pitfalls to using a package repository - For one, you have to trust whatever source you&#39;re getting the packages from to have the latest versions. For some programs, it took weeks before they showed up in the update list when I was running ubuntu. Another thing is, if a package you want isn&#39;t listed, you have to connect to another repository, which then results in conflicting packages. This happened to me when I was running ubuntu, I had a hell of a time fixing it with their lack of support (of course, I could probably fix it now, but I was pretty new at Linux back then).

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## Replicon

I&#39;ve never had any of those problems before. I&#39;m running Debian Stable (sarge iirc), so they pretty much only ever publish security fixes at this point. Then I&#39;ve got an unofficial one, for the sake of all the non-free goodness. As far as trusting the source is concerned, that&#39;s the case for any download. The only time I&#39;ve ever had conflict issues was when I was running stable, but really really wanted to try KDE3 before it was released, so I ended up switching to unstable, getting some packages, switching back to stable and updating. It worked, but I had to switch glibc, which as you probably know, causes a lot of conflicty pain.

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## ninja9578

The problem that I&#39;ve had with Ubuntu is that there isn&#39;t very good media support.  I can&#39;t find a sound player to handle both AAC and MP3 files, nor can I find a video player that has codecs for the common video formats: MPG, AVI, DivX, MP4, H.264... Is there one that can do that?  I still use Ubuntu and would like to find a program to do that.

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## MSG

VLC seems to have it&#39;s act pretty much together in the area of codecs and whatnot, so I&#39;d try that.

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