I think I may switch to the Mac, but I have some questions...

[johngibbons]

Hi,

First of all, forgive me if you guys get a post like this three times a week. I checked the active topics and didn't see anything like it. :-)

I'm a long time PC user, hate windows (although 2k and XP are big improvements) and I'm also a major Unix fan. I do Unix at work, and run several Linux servers for side work and at home. So obviously, like many, Mac OS X is the big reason why I'm considering a Mac.

I'm interested in a powermac, but I really don't know the difference between the various models. I am going to buy one used, probably from ebay. I'm a lot more educated now than I was two weeks ago, but there are a few gaps in my understanding. Mostly, speed. Because you can't compare MHz it's really difficult for me to figure out how fast a 400mhz g4 is, for example. So my first question is, (and be honest) are slower g4's (400mhz or so) fast enough to run OS X? To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, I'm happy with a P3 600+ running Win2k or Windows XP. I've heard a lot of complaints about OS X being slow (that's what I've heard, I'm not saying it's true) so I want to make sure I get something fast enough.

I've searched for benchmarks, but I haven't found anything really solid. I'd love to see a comparision of all the G4's and how they rate.

On that same note, how much faster are the dual processor powermacs now that OS X has arrived? Those are the boxes that appeal to me the most. But I don't want to shell out the extra $$$ if it isn't going to be worth it.

Let's see, I have a couple superdrive questions. I'm interested in the DVD burning on some of the Mac models. But I've heard you HAVE to get a Mac with a superdrive to use iDVD, because third party drives won't work with it. It also appears that Apple doesn't sell the superdrive as an add on. That limits my model choices considerably. Also, do macs come with analog video in? I've never seen that in the specs so I'm assuming not. I don't have a digital video camera so I'd be taking stuff from VHS and encoding it to later burn to DVD. I'm sure this can be accomplished with some added hardware. Any idea what that might cost? Suggestions?

I have a lot more questions, but this is a great start. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
John

[voice-]

I'm not really qualified to answer all that, but for the vies-thing, I have seen something from Matrox that could fetch video out of a VHS

[RyanLang]

It's great to see that you are coming over to the Mac realm. I switched over back in August and it has been nothing short of fantastic. I have a powermac G4 at 733 mhz and its awesome for running OS X. In response to your questions though, most people would probably agree that a G4 at 400 mhz is fine for running OS X, especially since many people with G3 chips use X and also that you mentioned you are fine with a Pentium 3 chip ( I say this because a G4 will destroy a Pentium 3, even at 400 mhz). In response to the dual processor issue, it all depends. If, for example, you are into video editing, photoshop, or anything processor intensive that you'll be using with OS X, a dual processor G4 will be much faster for you. But if you don't use programs that use a dual proc's capability, then its useless. However, OS X itself does take advantage of dual proc's. In the issue of the superdrive, I have the same issue myself because when I got my computer this summer, the 733's weren't coming with SD's. But, you are in luck. I believe you can buy the same super drive that come in the macs for around 400-450 bucks (am i close guys?) It's made by Pioneer and its the DVR-A03. It's easy to install and you can then use iDVD no problem after you put that bad boy in your system. Also, I have been looking into the video capturing thing myself (analog) and I came across a nice little capturing device made by Formac. It's the ProTVStereo PCI card. It only has os 9 support, but they claim it captures 640 X 480 video at 30 fps in either 4:3 and 16:9 mode and it has RCA, cable/ANT and s-video inputs. Plus, its only 99 bucks! www.formac.com should answer your questions about that a little better. There are more expensive products they offer that offer even more functionality. Well, I hope this answered some questions you had and thanks for turning to the Mac platform, it's really seeing a kick ass time for itself these days. Enjoy --Ryan

[rinse]

instead of buying a VHS to DV converter box (about $300) buy a DV camera ($500).

you'll be way happier.


a g4 400 is fine for what you are talking about. a dual 450 or 500 would be ideal... search for one of them. you'll freak at the speed difference between single and dual.

equip your self with at least 512 mb RAM.

glad to see someone making a wise decision on computer hardware.

[simX]

johngibbons:

You raise some good questions, but I can assure you that you will most likely have an excellent transition to Mac OS X if you have UNIX knowledge. Mac OS X truly is a dream in combining ease of use and power, and I have been empowered with SO many things in Mac OS X that I have never been able to do before on the Mac (or the PC for that matter).

You can see my specs for my computer at the bottom of my post. I'd have to say that OS X is still a bit sluggish at times, and I really envy my dad (who has a Titanium PowerBook G4) and my mom (who has a combo iBook running at 600 MHz -- it's actually faster than my G4 cube) in running OS X, but as I've actually never used their computers intensively, I can't truthfully say if they are really much faster. Keep in mind that I hunger for speed and the latest and greatest, but I usually do a lot of things at once (browse the web, check e-mail, develop using Interface Builder and Project Builder, chat via ICQ, have the Terminal and a copy of my under-development app open, have iTunes and a MOD player open, and I often have other apps like Terminal, TextEdit, and Script Editor open). While I don't do any REALLY processor intensive stuff, all of this activity can add up, and the extra processor power really helps in my situation. I don't have much use for expansion besides Airport and RAM, however, and that new iMac with a SuperDrive is looking awfully nice right now -- if only I could afford it.

Despite this speed issue, OS X has still dramatically improved my productivity because there is virtually no crashing anymore (I HAVE had a few kernel panics) and it efficiently allocates CPU and memory to each application so I can work fastest.

About getting a new PowerMac, I would definitely recommend a new one if you can afford it, especially those two high-end models (the 2 MB of L3 cache helps DRAMATICALLY). However, in your situation, I would probably find a used dual-800 MHz G4 on eBay somewhere. I know Apple probably sells refurbished/remaining models for around $2500 or so, which is pretty good, but see if you can find a better deal. The dual-800 MHz was the previous top-of-the-line before the current lineup of PowerMacs, and it definitely screamed. And dual processors really DOES make a difference, especially with OS X -- I can't give you any figures, but I've noticed a big difference when working with those machines.

About iDVD: I don't believe iDVD supports third-party DVD burners, but RyanLang is correct -- you can buy the Pioneer model that he mentioned and install it, and then you'll be able to use it (this is the model that is the SuperDrive). Be prepared to have to buy iDVD though, because if the computer doesn't come with a DVD burner, it won't come with iDVD.

And, no, the G4s don't have any analog audio in ports. This was taken out a couple years ago, and it's something that's always been lacking since.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

[RyanLang]

Im pretty sure you can buy idvd from apple through the update program for $19.95 (since its an iapp it should be that price because its supposed to be free to people who buy macs as of late). If not, email me and I will see what I can do

[johngibbons]

First of all thank you all for the great responses. It's been very helpful. I, like a lot of computer hobbiests always want the latest and greatest. I'm trying to resist that, because what if I don't end up liking the Mac? I know, that'll never happen, but just in case! :-)

I've seen the 867MHz G4's with the Superdrive on various sites for $1999 or so. I haven't seen a dual 800 new or used anywhere but the auction sites. Is the dual that much better? Is it just an extra processor or does it have the added cache like the new models? There's no info on the old stuff on Apple's site. Incidentally I have broadband so the dial-up issue means nothing to me.

I have a couple of other questions. First to you Unix guys, what's the state of X Servers on the Mac? I'd love to be able to launch X Apps hosted on my linux box directly on the Mac desktop. Although 99% of the time I run Exceed on my XP Box and use Linux purely for xterms. If the Mac has a good terminal, it might not even be neccessary. But I thought I'd ask. I've heard of the XFree86 port, but that's more for compiling apps locally. I've also heard of (but know nothing about) XonX. Perhaps I should read the other forums here for more info on that stuff.

I also plan to run the mac off of my KVM (Belkin 8 port), so I'll need a USB to PS2 adapter. I'm assuming that won't be a problem, but how does the mac handle a PC keyboard without the Apple keys (or whatever they have on them these days)? Will I run into any issues there?

Believe it or not there are a couple of Win XP features that I've come to really like. One is Remote Desktop, which is basically Windows Terminal services. It's MUCH better than VNC or PC Anywhere, and is built it. I've heard something about a similar Apple product, but I don't know the details. A Terminal Services/Remote Desktop client for the Mac would be handy as well. There is an open source one that I'm sure I could get working, but it's "not ready for prime time."

The other XP thing I really like is the switch user feature. You can basically "log off" without logging off and let someone else login to their own desktop, etc. You can quickly switch back to the other user with all your programs left as they were. Is there similar functionality on OS X? My girlfriend loves the fact that she can have her own login and wallpaper, and I love the fact that she won't be nosing through my files. :-) I can live without these two, but both would be nice.

Finally I should have probably clarified what it is I do on my PC. SimX and I probably are fairly similar. I always have a lot of apps open. Typically I'll have Outlook, ICQ, Exceed, a text editor (I'm a web developer), a bunch of browser windows, an ftp or scp client, winamp, and various odds and ends. Major apps I use are Photoshop, Outlook and IE. There are versions of all of those (or maybe something better in the case of outlook) on the Mac. I never play games on my PC, I have Playstation for that. If something doesn't work on the Mac, that'd be ok. I won't be getting rid of my XP box. But I'm really starting to think I'll WANT to get rid of it! :-)

As for the DV stuff, I see there are a lot of options. I feel safe that I'll find a workable solution. Like one of you suggested, maybe getting a dv camera at some point is a good idea anyway.

Thanks again for the great replies!

Cheers,
John

[vanguard]

Originally posted by johngibbons
I'm a long time PC user, hate windows (although 2k and XP are big improvements) and I'm also a major Unix fan. I do Unix at work, and run several Linux servers for side work and at home. So obviously, like many, Mac OS X is the big reason why I'm considering a Mac.

Cool, it's always nice to have more unix guys around.

Because you can't compare MHz it's really difficult for me to figure out how fast a 400mhz g4 is, for example. So my first question is, (and be honest) are slower g4's (400mhz or so) fast enough to run OS X?

You really want all the CPU you can afford. The thing is that OSX doesn't offload as much to the GPU (your graphics card) as other OSs do. Because of that, when you're resizing windows or when you're opening finder (apple's version of explorer) in a directory with 500 files in it the response can be a bit pokey. I have a 500 mhz G3 iBook. I've found that the overall feel of the app can be slow when using MS Office and MS Internet Explorer. IE was so slow at rendering large pages I switched to mozilla. If you get a 500+ mhz G4 you probably won't have these issues.

I've searched for benchmarks, but I haven't found anything really solid. I'd love to see a comparision of all the G4's and how they rate.

The benchmarks are only useful if you're writing scientific apps (ok, they have other uses too) because the amount of work performed under OSx is greater than the amount under windows. OSX's aqua layer (the gui) does so much work with fonts, anti-aliasing, etc. that it takes a lot of CPU to get your tasks done. Get all the CPU you can.

A little off topic: I kind of think of this period in Apple's history as comparable to when NT came out in MSFT's history. They have a new OS that's better in every way but it takes the current state of the art hardware to run it well. You could never load NT on your existing Pentium 90mhz and you can't drop OSX on your G3 266mhz. You will be able to use a G4 400 but it's nicer to have more CPU.

On that same note, how much faster are the dual processor powermacs now that OS X has arrived? Those are the boxes that appeal to me the most. But I don't want to shell out the extra $$$ if it isn't going to be worth it.

Dual processors are nice. I'm a comp sci guy and I believe that SMP machince represent the accumulation of mankind's logic up to this point. If you get into the internals of an SMP operating system you'll really appreciate the work that has been done.

Back on topic: SMP can only help you if you have instructions that can be performed out of order. It can't make iTunes faster, it can't render a page faster in IE, and it can't spellcheck faster.

However, it can make all sorts of graphic operations faster (break the picture into sections and divide up the work) it can make lots of video work faster, etc. Also, if you're running multiple apps (and who isn't) it can and will divide the workload amoung the CPUs. So, if I'm running iTunes on my laptop then Mozilla has to compete with it for CPU time. If you're running it on your SMP machine it can simply use the other CPU.

Let's see, I have a couple superdrive questions.

Sorry, I haven't done much video work.

I have a lot more questions, but this is a great start. Any help would be appreciated.

I moved from the Linux camp to the mac camp about 8 or 9 months ago. OSX is the finest consumer OS ever made. It has the unix underpinnings that I crave along with the ease of use and lickable UI that I love.

When I first started using OSX I didn't care about a lot of the finer points on the UI. Any font easy enough to read was cool. Anything that worked was good enough.

Now when I learn about some of the thought that went into the UI I really appreciate it. Windows puts the window close button next to maximize. That's horrible. Putting the file/edit/view on the app makes it's harder to find because it's always in a different place. There are a hundred examples of little things that make OSX better.

As for the hardware, the only sticking point is the CPU. I never knew LCD displays could be so bright and that the viewing angles could be so wide until I bought this iBook. The thing is well built and solid. The hinge isn't flimsy. It's finish just blows away my thinkpad (IBM).

In short, the OS is awesome, the hardware is awesome, the attention to detail is awesome, get all the CPU you can.

Vanguard