A few questions for the Mac Users

[WhiteyMacD]

Pointing to OSX in general is Like pointing to Windows in general. Talk about a specific version of OSX such as Leopard, Snow Leopard, etc if you're going to refer to Windows 7. Need i mention the beta version of Windows 7 known as Vista? Seriously, Vista. The name wreaks of a swish cheese operating system wreaking with security holes. Instead of doing the right thing and doing a huge overhaul service pack, windows decided to profit off of it and release the service pack as Windows 7 and charge for it!

If you compare apples to apples, Snow Leopard vs Windows 7, Windows 7 is much more buggy.

All my comparisons are using security analysts data directly comparing windows 7 to Snow Leopard.

As far as windows 7 being more buggy, I would like to see the data. Right now, everything I am seeing in the reports I just searched (google:snow leopard vs windows 7 + bugs), Reliability & Stability goes to windows 7 by a small, but still greater margin. (information coming form CNET/Tom's Hardware/Computer Security Professionals Organization)

 

[WhiteyMacD]

This sounds a lot like some preachers always saying the lord is coming back any day, and have ben saying that since they started preaching in the 60s. It's always going to happen soon.

Macs will never have that market share as long as there are Best Buy or Circuit City pubes selling PCs.

Not really. They are gaining market share every day. The history of windows has left a lot of people sick of windows products. Their track history has been very sub par, considering that their "breakthrough" OSes always bombed (Windows ME was supposed to be this huge improvement on 98. It was completely failure. Vista was supposed to be revolutionary. COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE).

If you look at the home computer market, I would say Mac is starting to be a real contender. People are more willing to pay for "perceived security" and ease of use.

I have favored unix based operating systems since the 90s, and if I had to buy a "OS installed" computer today, it would most likely be a Mac.

Sure, you will always have windows at the forefront with the work environments, but that really isnt the target audience when it comes to script kiddies and hackers.

 

[Jschatz]

Whitey,

I do agree with you on the security issues and was already go to run AV software just hadn't decided what.

Did you have anything to in response to my explaination of why I wanted to put windows on my iMac. It's back on page one before the thread was semi derailed.

Ray

 

[WhiteyMacD]

Whitey,

I do agree with you on the security issues and was already go to run AV software just hadn't decided what.

Did you have anything to in response to my explaination of why I wanted to put windows on my iMac. It's back on page one before the thread was semi derailed.

Ray

I had a response yesterday, but there was a fatal error on the forum DB when I tried to post.

So to answer, I understand why now. Make sense. Unfortunately that is the drawback to any non-windows OS (the lack of certain popular program packages).

Honestly, my knee jerk reaction echos 1shot(bob)'s: "Why taint your system with windows?" But I have been in the same situation as you and had to virtualize windows to achieve much of what I needed. Since its more of a neccessity (needing certain applications that do not have a Mac port), I say just do what you think will be easiest.

In my case, I almost always virtualize. I like the idea of native installs a lot more, but I just dont like switching OSes. Specially when all I need out of the other OS is a few applications. On the other hand, I dont like how VMware (sorry, I am a linux guy so no experience with parallels, its available for linux, just a little aprehensive about trying due to similar linux options that I hated *KVM and Virtual Box I couldnt stand because of their tools*) makes the child OS sluggish (which I guess it isnt a problem if you have the system resources to support both. By that I mean, if you have enough RAM on your host machine that you can afford the sizeable requirements of Windows OS "to make them usable").

So I guess if its a question of native vs virtualized, the question would be how quickly you want to jump back and forth and if your host has enough HP to do virtualization without it seeming like you are trying to run windows 7 on a 386.

 

[aestus]

Rofl... this thread really did steer off into void from the original topic.

After reading what you're going to be using the windows box for, I would recommend just using boot camp to boot natively into windows. I'm not familiar with those programs, but if you're needing to do any renderings or processor intensive activities and need hardware acceleration form the graphics card, natively booting with boot camp is your best bet.

For my vm of windows, I actually use an external usb hard drive and use virtualbox as my VM software. A little known trick you can do to make your vm of Win 7 run blazing fast is to intentionally starve it in your VM settings. This will force Win 7 to turn off many of the UI animations and tricks it into thinking it's on a netbook. I set my VM to "netbook specs" by telling the vm to run on only 1 cpu core, with 1-2 gb of ram and it seriously boots up in less than 7-10 seconds (faster than most people's native bootups of win 7 on more powerful, dedicated boxes.) You could dedicate more resources and manually turn off many of these settings and manual set the power settings in win 7, but I've found that just starving your VM box to netbook specs is a fast and convenient way to get win 7 to do this on it's own. This obviously won't work for you if you need windows to do serious renderings and need hardware acceleration.

The only reason I need my windows vm is to test web design implementations in IE tester when I don't have access to my windows box at home.

 

[WhiteyMacD]

Rofl... this thread really did steer off into void from the original topic.

After reading what you're going to be using the windows box for, I would recommend just using boot camp to boot natively into windows. I'm not familiar with those programs, but if you're needing to do any renderings or processor intensive activities and need hardware acceleration form the graphics card, natively booting with boot camp is your best bet.

For my vm of windows, I actually use an external usb hard drive and use virtualbox as my VM software. A little known trick you can do to make your vm of Win 7 run blazing fast is to intentionally starve it in your VM settings. This will force Win 7 to turn off many of the UI animations and tricks it into thinking it's on a netbook. I set my VM to "netbook specs" by telling the vm to run on only 1 cpu core, with 1-2 gb of ram and it seriously boots up in less than 7-10 seconds (faster than most people's native bootups of win 7 on more powerful, dedicated boxes.) You could dedicate more resources and manually turn off many of these settings and manual set the power settings in win 7, but I've found that just starving your VM box to netbook specs is a fast and convenient way to get win 7 to do this on it's own. This obviously won't work for you if you need windows to do serious renderings and need hardware acceleration.

The only reason I need my windows vm is to test web design implementations in IE tester when I don't have access to my windows box at home.

I may need to give virtualbox another try on linux. Last time I used it, I couldnt stand it. I am like you, dont really need a hardcore graphics in the windows programs I do need, so virtualization fits the bill.

 

[aestus]

I may need to give virtualbox another try on linux. Last time I used it, I couldnt stand it. I am like you, dont really need a hardcore graphics in the windows programs I do need, so virtualization fits the bill.

Not sure if things are still this way, but I remember running virtual box on linux and hating it. The mac version was way more intuitive to use and configure. Setting up new boxes and installs was a breeze. Wasn't so with the Linux version. Seemed like they spent a lot of time streamlining the mac version to cater to the mac audiences and left the linux version raw and untamed. Not sure if this is still the case with the Linux version.

 

[poopgiggle]

Not sure if things are still this way, but I remember running virtual box on linux and hating it. The mac version was way more intuitive to use and configure. Setting up new boxes and installs was a breeze. Wasn't so with the Linux version. Seemed like they spent a lot of time streamlining the mac version to cater to the mac audiences and left the linux version raw and untamed. Not sure if this is still the case with the Linux version.

I use VirtualBox on Linux too with no problems. I don't know when you tried it but for the last year or so it's been fine.

 

[Jschatz]

These softwares will be used similarly to excel to run linear programming models and such so I am not needing a high powered windows box. I am pretty sure my iMac with a 2.93 GHz i7, 8GB of ram, and 2TB harddrive should be able to share and virtualize windows 7 fine since I run it on my acer netbook and am pleased with the performance that I achieve for school related purposes. I have run virtual box in the past from windows to run linux and was semi pleased with the results. I may setup a virtual machine using some free version of linux to give it a test run before I install windows.

What is a good intensive distro that is easy to install that I could use to try this out?

 

[WhiteyMacD]

These softwares will be used similarly to excel to run linear programming models and such so I am not needing a high powered windows box. I am pretty sure my iMac with a 2.93 GHz i7, 8GB of ram, and 2TB harddrive should be able to share and virtualize windows 7 fine since I run it on my acer netbook and am pleased with the performance that I achieve for school related purposes. I have run virtual box in the past from windows to run linux and was semi pleased with the results. I may setup a virtual machine using some free version of linux to give it a test run before I install windows.

What is a good intensive distro that is easy to install that I could use to try this out?

Easy distro? You would be fine on install with OpenSuSe or ubuntu (regular ubuntu or kubuntu).