I am not really a Mac user but greatly envy their design.With regard to the new iMacs, I am wondering whether there are *ergonomically* competitive products in the PC/Linux world?
Specifically the current iMac offers: (i) compact footprint; (ii) *Silent running*; (iii) dvi interface to flat panel; (iv) firewire out; (v) high quality keyboard and mouse.
In my view some disadvantages include: (i) screen attachment limits placement; (ii) trailing edge CPU price/performance compared to PC world; (iii) No USB 2; (iv) Sealed construction; (v) Prefer Linux OS.
Actually I think that the pricing of the iMacs in this cost benefit picture is a wash. I recently configured a P4 box based on the Shuttle FlexAT board in a "GBox" cube case with a 15" LCD as an iMac "equivalent." The cost was approximately 1500 US. The specs on the box were somewhat better than a similarly priced iMac: 1.6GHz P4/512M Ram/40G HD. However the unit was: Unacceptably noisy; larger; made use of vga rather than dvi connection to the flatpanel.
So what are the iMac-like options in the PC world ie silent; compact; dvi video out? Or is it just better to run Yellow Dog on the iMac
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I am not really a Mac user but greatly envy their design.With regard to the new iMacs, I am wondering whether there are *ergonomically* competitive products in the PC/Linux world? Specifically the current iMac offers: (i) compact footprint; (ii) *Silent running*; (iii) dvi interface to flat panel; (iv) firewire out; (v) high quality keyboard and mouse. In my view some disadvantages include: (i) screen attachment limits placement; (ii) trailing edge CPU price/performance compared to PC world; (iii) No USB 2; (iv) Sealed construction; (v) Prefer Linux OS. Actually I think that the pricing of the iMacs in this cost benefit picture is a wash. I recently configured a P4 box based on the Shuttle FlexAT board in a "GBox" cube case with a 15" LCD as an iMac "equivalent." The cost was approximately 1500 US. The specs on the box were somewhat better than a similarly priced iMac: 1.6GHz P4/512M Ram/40G HD. However the unit was: Unacceptably noisy; larger; made use of vga rather than dvi connection to the flatpanel. So what are the iMac-like options in the PC world ie silent; compact; dvi video out? Or is it just better to run Yellow Dog on the iMac