Mac VS PC: ultimate face off!...

[SUroot]

Linux, windows and OSX I think its called ? but what on earth is Vtech....is it a taking service ? as for Fisher price and speak and spell...are you sure you are not making this up ? if these are real, are they OSS ?

All 3 are manufacturers of children's educational toys (electronic).

Fisher price and speak and spell go back certainly as far as when I was a child. Vtech, probably only the last 10 years

 

[KTW]

I wouldn't mind trying linux but I can't find it at the shops even though its open source software (OSS)
I'm currently using windows XP...yes, I was a gamer.

how do I get and install linux, is it easy ?
I am almost a complete rookie when it comes to this.

what advantages does it give me over windows ?

 

[lunatic59]

I wouldn't mind trying linux but I can't find it at the shops even though its open source software (OSS)
I'm currently using windows XP...yes, I was a gamer.

how do I get and install linux, is it easy ?
I am almost a complete rookie when it comes to this.

what advantages does it give me over windows ?

Download a popular distro to start like

Ubuntu
Mint
Fedora

You download an ISO image of a live CD and you can boot and install right from the CD. The nice thing about a live CD is you can boot into the OS without altering the OS on your PC if you want to try it out.

 

[andruoid]

I wouldn't mind trying linux but I can't find it at the shops even though its open source software (OSS)
I'm currently using windows XP...yes, I was a gamer.

how do I get and install linux, is it easy ?
I am almost a complete rookie when it comes to this.

what advantages does it give me over windows ?

The majority of different GNU/Linux distrobutions are downloaded and burned to DVD-R. Mint Linux 12 is my favorite and can be found here; www.linuxmint.com You can also save a DVD by installing it on a USB drive via PenDriveLinux Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3 | USB Pen Drive Linux boot up and see if you like it.

Installation is easy with Mint and Ubuntu being the most popular and supported. You'll find the install and updates take a fraction of the time as compared to Windows. All apps you need are available through Software Manager, most are free.

I'd recommend joining the Linux Mint forums as they are very friendly and willing to help all levels of questions.

 

[KTW]

what is the url to the linux mint forums ?

 

[SUroot]

what is the url to the linux mint forums ?

Hahah sorry, but you asked for it... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+mint+forums#seen

linux mint forums

 

[zuben el genub]

I liked Palm. If you look at some of the astronomy programs, Palm had 2 in its heyday.
Astromist was written for Palm and CE, Planetarium was written for Palm.

Astromist could control a telescope, give you position of Saturn's moons, identify craters on the moon by touch and more. This was done by coding only. You didn't need wifi or a network. And the program ran on the processor and the amount of RAM of the device.

I like Linux, am using 11.04 until I figure out what to do about Unity. I'm one of the ones that don't like it. I did get the old desktop back. I can run Unity, but don't want it.

If the programs are what interests you say editing photos in Gimp or doing spreadsheet and bookkeeping, then why do you need a fancy desktop and icon set? People usually maximize the programs anyway so you don't even see the desktop.

 

[SUroot]

Because its nice to have nice looking things

 

[mrspeedmaster]

It depends on your use case scenario.

For me, in a nutshell, the answer is you get full-on UNIX w/ all the GNU accutrements and a great AV workstation. My answer is based off my use-case and to answer Pro Photoshop/Lightroom/Video users.

For a single user, a Windows PC will be cheaper to operate for apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, Indesign and video editing. So yes, a PC may work for you. End of answer.

HOWEVER

In a pro-work environment where you need to automate, there is no contest when it comes to designing automated production workflow.

Photoshop has actions scriptiing and batch output but in OSX, you can leverage the power of UNIX behind it and windows has no comparable.

We work with hot-folders and automated processes.

Here is one example:
I work in agency where we get files all the times from clients. A client will FTP a low-res zip to our FTP at 4am (from the other side of the world).

With no interaction on my part, I have daemon cron process that checks the filesystem, retrieves the new zip, unzips it in the background, read the meta-data,ISO/EXIF.
It determines the low-res files are reference only and pulls the high-res files (4-10GB retouched psd).
If the image was shot with a hasselbad using a 20mm lens or a Canon Mark II & a 75mm prime, a back-end scripts using mdfind can pull the correct post-processing alterations.
It then runs Photoshop headless, apply a curve, saves out the files and drops the hi-res into Indesign. When it finishes, it sends the files to various newspaper pub's FTP. An email is sent upon completion.


I never have to even open the file. The whole process is automated. I never clicked on the Photoshop icon or launched the app from my mouse.
This is done w/ rsync, perl, awk, bash, applescript; using GNU userland tools from UNIX.

You might be able to hack something w/ VBscript, Cygwin on Windows but it is gonna be hacky and sloppy. There will be sandbox issues. Good luck trying to vbscript Photoshop to SFTP/curl a file or send you an email.


I get new hires who are pc-fanboys. They talk about the speed of the rigs they built themselves at home. From what I know Sandy Bridgge I7 is single socket. In video, we get 4K RED video files. Mac Pro towers can go dual socket xenons w/ 12 cores so the $1800 I built myself can't compare. Try pricing Dell/HP comparable workstations.
I can leverage the power of 60 mac workstations (240+ cores) from the command line and with tools like Xgrid, Compressor. We tap idle machines very easily. With little bash-scripting knowledge,
you can build your own render cloud/farm. You can use quicktime w/ bash scripts and do cool things like generate poster frames into a contact sheet for art directors to review. Linux (w/ ffmpeg) doesn't have all the proprietary codec supports.


Image batch processing is superior as well. a 10GB (yes, 10 GIGABYTE) single Photoshop file w/ 80 layers will need a PC w/ 48GB of RAM. I guarantee you whatever PC you use, you will need to take coffee breaks between moves. Even w/ a Sata 3 SSD, expect 4-5 minutes just to open the file and another 10 minutes to save.

In OSX, you can you can extract low-res in the terminal using stuff like sips and place in your docs. Since it pulls the resource (part of the file), this takes 30 seconds.
An art director assistant isn't going to need 48GB of ram to review low-res or need to ask anyone to re-save out a jpeg file for review. There a gazillion things you can do in OSX related to pro photo/video/post.
A simple command line, you can extract pages of PDFs into jpegs and dump the text from the PDF into a word doc or a database for searching.

I consulted a catalog client on how to batch their mail-order catalog w/ Indesign, perl,node.js and mySQL.
From a shell script, it loads all the images off the database, opens, and inserts all the product images into new catalog pages and updates their website.

Using windows, the option was to pay $3-4,000 for some 3rd party app w/out all the extra functionality. In Mac OSX, all that is required is the terminal. Everything you need is built in.
I can't do that w/ Linux (no indesign).

In fact, a lot of things you can't do w/ Linux. I've seen examples of guys doing stuff w/ perl and ImageMagick/Gimp/GS/xpdf. You hit a brick wall once you start dealing w/ proprietary file formats/codecs.

A lot of production houses have in-house IT that do nothing but automate. I'm not saying many of this can't be done w/ Windows. It would be very costly and not-out-of-the-box.

If a window user had to open 60 images, check the meta-data manually, retrieve the original hi-res, apply the correct color curve per file instance, re-save them out and FTP the completed files to 40 publications and email 40 different users,
It can take them a good day to do. A script can handle it in 30 minutes or so, that is real metrics that no super-duper $1800 PC rig can do.

BTW, I am split Linux 40%/ Mac 60% at home.

 

[alostpacket]

Any thread that ends up with speak and spell pictures is a winner in my book.

 

[SUroot]

It depends on your use case scenario.

For me, in a nutshell, the answer is you get full-on UNIX w/ all the GNU accutrements and a great AV workstation. My answer is based off my use-case and to answer Pro Photoshop/Lightroom/Video users.

For a single user, a Windows PC will be cheaper to operate for apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, Indesign and video editing. So yes, a PC may work for you. End of answer.

HOWEVER

In a pro-work environment where you need to automate, there is no contest when it comes to designing automated production workflow.

Photoshop has actions scriptiing and batch output but in OSX, you can leverage the power of UNIX behind it and windows has no comparable.

We work with hot-folders and automated processes.

Here is one example:
I work in agency where we get files all the times from clients. A client will FTP a low-res zip to our FTP at 4am (from the other side of the world).

With no interaction on my part, I have daemon cron process that checks the filesystem, retrieves the new zip, unzips it in the background, read the meta-data,ISO/EXIF.
It determines the low-res files are reference only and pulls the high-res files (4-10GB retouched psd).
If the image was shot with a hasselbad using a 20mm lens or a Canon Mark II & a 75mm prime, a back-end scripts using mdfind can pull the correct post-processing alterations.
It then runs Photoshop headless, apply a curve, saves out the files and drops the hi-res into Indesign. When it finishes, it sends the files to various newspaper pub's FTP. An email is sent upon completion.


I never have to even open the file. The whole process is automated. I never clicked on the Photoshop icon or launched the app from my mouse.
This is done w/ rsync, perl, awk, bash, applescript; using GNU userland tools from UNIX.

You might be able to hack something w/ VBscript, Cygwin on Windows but it is gonna be hacky and sloppy. There will be sandbox issues. Good luck trying to vbscript Photoshop to SFTP/curl a file or send you an email.


I get new hires who are pc-fanboys. They talk about the speed of the rigs they built themselves at home. From what I know Sandy Bridgge I7 is single socket. In video, we get 4K RED video files. Mac Pro towers can go dual socket xenons w/ 12 cores so the $1800 I built myself can't compare. Try pricing Dell/HP comparable workstations.
I can leverage the power of 60 mac workstations (240+ cores) from the command line and with tools like Xgrid, Compressor. We tap idle machines very easily. With little bash-scripting knowledge,
you can build your own render cloud/farm. You can use quicktime w/ bash scripts and do cool things like generate poster frames into a contact sheet for art directors to review. Linux (w/ ffmpeg) doesn't have all the proprietary codec supports.


Image batch processing is superior as well. a 10GB (yes, 10 GIGABYTE) single Photoshop file w/ 80 layers will need a PC w/ 48GB of RAM. I guarantee you whatever PC you use, you will need to take coffee breaks between moves. Even w/ a Sata 3 SSD, expect 4-5 minutes just to open the file and another 10 minutes to save.

In OSX, you can you can extract low-res in the terminal using stuff like sips and place in your docs. Since it pulls the resource (part of the file), this takes 30 seconds.
An art director assistant isn't going to need 48GB of ram to review low-res or need to ask anyone to re-save out a jpeg file for review. There a gazillion things you can do in OSX related to pro photo/video/post.
A simple command line, you can extract pages of PDFs into jpegs and dump the text from the PDF into a word doc or a database for searching.

I consulted a catalog client on how to batch their mail-order catalog w/ Indesign, perl,node.js and mySQL.
From a shell script, it loads all the images off the database, opens, and inserts all the product images into new catalog pages and updates their website.

Using windows, the option was to pay $3-4,000 for some 3rd party app w/out all the extra functionality. In Mac OSX, all that is required is the terminal. Everything you need is built in.
I can't do that w/ Linux (no indesign).

In fact, a lot of things you can't do w/ Linux. I've seen examples of guys doing stuff w/ perl and ImageMagick/Gimp/GS/xpdf. You hit a brick wall once you start dealing w/ proprietary file formats/codecs.

A lot of production houses have in-house IT that do nothing but automate. I'm not saying many of this can't be done w/ Windows. It would be very costly and not-out-of-the-box.

If a window user had to open 60 images, check the meta-data manually, retrieve the original hi-res, apply the correct color curve per file instance, re-save them out and FTP the completed files to 40 publications and email 40 different users,
It can take them a good day to do. A script can handle it in 30 minutes or so, that is real metrics that no super-duper $1800 PC rig can do.

BTW, I am split Linux 40%/ Mac 60% at home.

$1800? That sounds like a simple challenge. Usd? Aud? What? Macs are majorly over priced so sounds easy to me. Also please supply your mac source. I wont waste time beating a price that isn't proven to be true.


Another question, what can mac do that Linux can't?

 

[zuben el genub]

Run Photoshop without WINE.
I don't care for GIMP. Inkscape isn't a bad vector program, but I used to use Illustrator for almost everything at work.

 

[mikedt]

So what defines a pc? Macs use the exact same hardware now. So its a mac if it runs Mac OS, otherwise its a pc?

Imho it goes like this for my own preference and opinion, top being best.

Linux
Windows
Vtech
Fisher price
Speak and spell
MAC

'MAC' is cosmetics isn't it? Never heard of Vtech.

One is wondering where OS X might comes in the list?

 

[SUroot]

'MAC' is cosmetics isn't it? Never heard of Vtech.

One is wondering where OS X might comes in the list?

Auto-selection on android.

MAC is an acronym for Media Access Control and it assumes I am typing that. I am typing "Mac" though.

With Windows I didn't specify XP, vista or 7. With Linux I didn't even specify a distro so I think you can already see where OS x comes in that list. Last. Bottom. Worst

 

[mikedt]

Auto-selection on android.

MAC is an acronym for Media Access Control and it assumes I am typing that. I am typing "Mac" though.

With Windows I didn't specify XP, vista or 7. With Linux I didn't even specify a distro so I think you can already see where OS x comes in that list. Last. Bottom. Worst

Ah OK...thanks.

BTW I thought Speak & Spell would have come higher in the list, maybe above Fisher Price. I've seen E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, those things are very versatile.

 

[SUroot]

Ah OK...thanks.

BTW I thought Speak & Spell would have come higher in the list, maybe above Fisher Price. I've seen E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, those things are very versatile.

No quite the opposite.

If Fisher price were linux, speak and spell would be puppy linux. Yeah its good, but cut down. If you only have twin 128Kb (yes Kilobit not Kilobyte) ROM though, you havent got a lot of choice and speak and spell is hardware specific. There is only one hardware set you can use and that always includes the TMS5110 speech chip which although good at the time, is now a little dated.

There is of course the Super Speak and Spell which had a better hardware spec. It moved to LCD from VFD. Brilliant.

 

[Remeniz]

I prefer Windows machines to Apple ones.

I build my own Windows machines, using high quality motherboards, RAM modules, Cooling, Hard drives and PSU's. A similar spec Windows machine, Tower, can be had for a lot less than a Mac Pro. I do a little audio production work so I built mine, in 2009, for this purpose. The machines I build work flawlessly.

You can't build your own Apple machines, Hackingtosh's aside.

The iMac is a different cattle of fish. The amazing display aside, it's kinda like a laptop with external keyboard and mouse. And even though there's plenty Windows lappy's with better specs they wont have the great screen technology as the iMac, unless you spend the extra on a nice external display, which is the way I would go.

I have a laptop and the first thing I did was do a clean Windows install. I know have a machine clean of bloat and works very efficiently.

I used an iPad the other day and the lack of flash and very little in the way of customisation really, really frustrated me.

I gotta say though. My neice got a 5 year old black Mac Book for free that didn't work (dead hard drive). So I got a new hard drive, upgraded the RAM to 2GB while I was at it, and with the OS it added up to

 

[mrspeedmaster]

$1800? That sounds like a simple challenge. Usd? Aud? What? Macs are majorly over priced so sounds easy to me. Also please supply your mac source. I wont waste time beating a price that isn't proven to be true.

My point is those who compare their $1800 rigs are doing a disengous job of proving their point.
A $1800 i7-2600K sandy bridge rig will not compare to a Dual Hexacore (dual socket 6 core/12 total) rig.

Sandy Bridge i7s are not XEON. End of conversation.

If you want more specifics.

Mac Pros run XEON CPUs.
The 12 core box runs Xeon X5570 cpus. (Intel® Xeon® Processor X5570 (8M Cache, 2.93 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI))
The CPU themselves run $1500 or $3000 for 2 socket ones.

I don't know where you can build your own dual socket Westmere Xeon X5570 box from a brick retailer.
Can you buy a Westmere motherboard from Frys?
The cheapest mo-bo is $400 @ New Egg: Newegg.com - SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DA3-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 Extended ATX Dual Intel Xeon 5600/5500 series processor

So the $1800 i7 Sandy Bridge "I built myself" white boxes are not comparable.

Motherboard and CPU alone at New Egg is already $3400. We have not even added a video card, case, memory yet.

Some source:
$1448
Newegg.com - Intel Xeon X5570 Nehalem 2.93GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 95W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80602X5570
Intel Xeon X5570 Nehalem 2.93GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 95W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80602X5570
The Mac Pros are not Sandy Bridge consumer level i7.
TWO X5570 cpus are already $3000.

I just built i7 2600K build @ $1200. It is fast for my need but when I tried opening a 12 Gigabyte photoshop psd file, I can see where the $7000 mac rigs have their value.

Another question, what can mac do that Linux can't?

I just gave some examples that you didn't care to pick up on.

1) Run Photoshop headless using GNU userland tools w/ full transparent automation and ubiquity
2) Run Indesign headless w/ automation.
3) Handle proprietary codecs/file formats using GNU UNIX tools w/ out major hacks or questionable issues.
E.G. set up a plug-n-play render farm that can generate transcoding of 4K HD red .r3d video

Heck, in short, just the ability to run Photoshop natively without emulator/virtualization or hacks like wine.

Macs are 100% certified UNIX (Register of Open Branded Products) with the ability to handle proprietary files and formats.
Linux is great but there is no: Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Indesign.
You can't use tools like GIMP to replace Photoshop because GIMP (for 10 plus years) does not support CMYK colorspace required by professionals.

I use Linux all the time and I use Macs. I use whatever platform provides me with the tools I need. I manage about 40 Linux servers both real and VM in the cloud running specific tasks.
Linux is a great cheap server OS. There are great tools. I have a cluster of Linux machines coordinated just to use FFMPEG fully threaded across cores but sometimes, I need the power of Quicktime
when it comes to proprietary file codecs like RED video (used by Hollywood) or ProRes422.

Macs are like a better, polished Linux Distro but it has a BSD UNIX core with the ability to run pro apps used in Windows. Windows is cheap but as any Linux user knows, it does not have POSIX GNU tools built in natively.

 

[johnlgalt]

While your post is informative, the tone of it is also very condescending - let's keep our cool and the discussion angst free, OK?

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

mrspeedmaster, thank you for the informative posts. I can see where it can be advantageous in your particular scenario but you are stepping out of the realm of the average consumer which is kind of where the base of this discussion lies.

Interestingly Canon listed the minimum requirements for H.264 video editing as a single I7 or dual Zeons which would intimate that a single Zeon was not comparable to an I7. This was when the I7's first came out and I think it may have been more of a lateral product comparison, I have not kept up with the recent Zeon progress. I am considering a dual Zeon machine in the near future though, I have been using my rig as an all purpose unit and want to switch it to my gaming/general system and build one for creative work only.

 

[SUroot]

My point is those who compare their $1800 rigs are doing a disengous job of proving their point.
A $1800 i7-2600K sandy bridge rig will not compare to a Dual Hexacore (dual socket 6 core/12 total) rig.

Sandy Bridge i7s are not XEON. End of conversation.

If you want more specifics.

Mac Pros run XEON CPUs.
The 12 core box runs Xeon X5570 cpus. (Intel

 

[SUroot]

the tone of it is also very condescending

He is a mac user.

I Kid I kid, couldn't resist

 

[zuben el genub]

Neither Linux nor Mac can run machine embroidery software.
Pfaff used to have a Mac program but dropped it after the 1475 model. After that, it was Windows only and a lot of it really prefers XP.

Just recently, someone did bring out an embroidery/editing program for the Mac. Otherwise Mac owners had to run Parallels.

 

[brotherswing]

Slackware. All the way.

 

[AngelArs]

what's better and why ? lets get a conversation on this issue going.

Oh no, not another Mac VS PC thread

Where's the Coke VS Pepsi thread?

Aside from the fact that OS X Lion is lightyears ahead of the update of Vista, oops I mean Windows 7, there are many ways to look at this question. You need to be specific as to what you mean by 'better'. Some things about Windows can be better. Some things about Macs can be better. Plus some hardware for windows can be adiquite and some can be crap. That's why these threads make no sense. They aren't specific enough and one person uses it in one context, while another person uses it in another. Should be fun until the proverbial closing of the thread