My laptop is now reaching old age. It’s over 3 years old and it’s starting to get a bit clunky. Time for a new one this year sometime.
I want a 13″ laptop as portability is an issue. So I started to look at the usual laptop vendors, Toshiba (which I currently have) and HP* were the two I checked out. As well as Mac.
You can get some reasonable 15″ laptops for around $1,200 which would suit my needs… if they were 13″. But as soon as you go with the smaller model it adds at least $1,000 to the price (often $2,000) and the processor significantly deteriorates in speed (almost halves in some cases).
Which leaves me with the MacBook. 13″ at around $1,200 with an Education discount.
There’s no denying the quality of the Mac hardware. The screens are nicer, they have the multi-touch touch pad, they are thin etc. But I just don’t was to run the MacOS. I prefer Linux.
There are a range of reasons but the primary one is that Mac locks you into Mac stuff, Linux just doesn’t. I hate iTunes and I hate iPhoto. If you want to take full advantage of the MacOS then you need to use these two programs and once you’ve done that you’re locked into them. You can’t reclaim your music (without significant hassle) once it’s in the iTunes library. Anything else just feels like a perpetual workaround.
I’ve got a huge personal commitment to Open Source Software and data longevity is a big reason for this.
So i’m going to buy a MacBook in the next 12 months, and I’m going to install Linux on it so that all my data is free forever, not locked into am over-hyped OS that could well go out of fashion one day and leave you with a bunch of music you’ll never be able to listen to again.
(Cue Mac Fanboys who are the second biggest reason I hate Macs. Actually, I don’t hate Macs (I use one at work) I just prefer Linux.)
*If you know of a laptop brand that matches a 13″ MacBook please let me know.
Dave Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 9:48 amVisit Dave
“You can’t reclaim your music (without significant hassle) once it’s in the iTunes library.”
What? I’m all on board with your OS X hate, but this is wrong. It’s straightforward to use iTunes without “lock-in” – rip to mp3, choose not to copy additions to the iTunes folder – done! Want to get it back, just copy all the mp3s on your hard drive. Simple.
Hammy Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 9:52 amVisit Hammy
Well there you go. I still feel like it’s a constant work around and a lot of my music is in ogg format which iTunes won’t place.
Bob Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:56 amVisit Bob
Ok, even though I’m not using mac at the moment, I’ve spent lots of time with OS X and I can’t help having a little fanboy rant.
There’s no lockdown! in fact there are loads of application that offer lots of tweaking to the base OS, and stacks of open source apps.
On top of that you have root access and terminal, to do, pretty much whatever you like, with all of your sweet linux commands, and no clunky UI.
I’m going to stop typing now.
Hammy Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 11:20 amVisit Hammy
Yeah, but I just really like linux you know. Are you using Linux at the moment? Or BSD? Don’t tell me you’re using the other one.
Bob Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:08 pmVisit Bob
I have no good news to report sir. standing down.
Mike Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:13 pmVisit Mike
So really your gripe is that you’re regretting the decision to rip your music to OGG? I’m sure there’s an app for that…
itunes stores all your music in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ by default. You can tell it to leave it where it is if you don’t want it to manage it for you. You can also just copy those files to an external drive and give them to someone else if you want. Steve Jobs won’t stop you unless you’ve bought it off itunes and the person you’re giving the music isn’t part of your household.
Like .app files, the iPhoto library is just a series of folders with your photos and a bunch of metadata. You can browse the contents in finder just by right clicking > show contents of package.
Fanboys aren’t blindly in love. Apple just makes great stuff which, for the most part, is significantly better than it’s competitor’s offerings. If there were better products, we would buy them…
So with your primary reason gone, what’s the problem?
I don’t rant about how awesome Apple stuff is because I feel a sense of moral superiority, I do it because as an IT professional and power user, it is the best system I have used and I want my friends to share in that as well. My typical response of “get a mac” when friends are complaining about how their shit has fucked up is because Macs (in my own experience of them) are pretty much without the issues that a lot of people face (like viruses or the latest ubuntu release randomly breaking stuff).
There is very little that bugs me about Macs and nothing that I can think of that is fundamentally wrong. I use computers a lot and I don’t want to spend time getting the thing to work or maintaining. I want to do my own stuff and not have to worry about it all going pearshaped.
There is definitely an element of smugness but that’s because shit just works and I don’t face the headaches that a lot of others do.
Hammy Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:43 pmVisit Hammy
Sounds like someone has a small penis…
Mike Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:50 pmVisit Mike
It’s not the size of the penis but it’s rock-solid stability, fantastic hardware/software combination and it’s interoperability with vaginas.
What’s the point of a massive cock if it gets viruses or stops working suddenly? Nothing kills the mood like a forced reboot. Unless that’s what you’re into…
Don’t forget to have a safe word!