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When Is There a Good Time to "Switch" to Apple?

Posted by Cliff on from the best-time-to-hop-on-the-bandwagon dept.

AllNines asks: "With all the hype of MacWorld and the compelling keynote given by Steve Jobs about the upcoming Tiger and Spotlight, I am thinking about 'switching' (Linux user since '97) but I am not sure the time is right. It seems like the PowerBooks are getting very long in the tooth and the iPods are due for a major rev. When is the right time to jump on the Apple ship? Am I going to get burned by a sluggish overpriced laptop that is updated next month?"

3 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Mac Buyer's Guide by dendoes · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

  2. Good reasons. by theolein · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ease of use: The OS is very stable, as stable as anything in the Linux world. The apps are generally of better quality than stuff found in the Linux world, although you can use those on OSX as well. The GUI and applications all use the same user interface, which means that you don't have wildly differing interfaces such as is the case of GTK+ and KDE apps. (Think GIMP and OpenOffice and tell me why most apps don't even follow the GNOME HCI guidlines).

    The OS is incredibly easy to configure compared to the various competing KDE/Gnome distros (which is exactly the problem there). And if you need the terminal and wish to do stuff by hand, it's there, and you're free to do what you like with the system's innnards as it's OSS and well documented.

    The OS, apps and hardware are tightly integrated, which means that problems like hardware compatibility don't exist.

    The software and hardware are both of high quality, which really means something if you've used Dell or no name brands.

    It goes way byond things like Eye Candy, which says to me that you've never actually used the OS for a period of time yourself.

  3. You can net-boot the Macs and run them diskless. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    You can net-boot the Macs and run them diskless.
    The NetBoot service in Mac OS X Server enables multiple Mac systems to boot from a single server-based disk image, instead of from their internal hard drive. This allows you to create a standard configuration and use it on all of the desktop systems in a department or classroom -- or host multiple images customized for different workgroups. You can even create server configurations and run all of your servers from one image. Updating the disk image on the NetBoot server updates all of these systems automatically the next time they restart.
    The functionality is built-in to pretty much every Apple system.