[ale] mac v pc
James P. Kinney III
jkinney at localnetsolutions.com
Fri Apr 12 21:54:24 EDT 2002
My $0.02 on this.
I had the fun once of running a test between two comparably priced
platforms, mac vs. pc. The hard drive size was neglected, the monitor
was not included, nor was the graphics card. So I was comparing a
motherboard with cpu and ram against motherboard with cpu and ram (both
128M). I ran the kernel compile test (2.2.x). The mac finished in about
half the time of the pc. Both were running linux (Redhat and Yellowdog
of same kernel).
What does this show? It shows that the powerpc chip is well suited for
computationally intensive tasks such as graphics manipulation and kernel
compiling. It would also do well at scientific computing.
But if the Mac OS is plopped on it, things change greatly for the worse.
I was comparing an ide setup on both systems. The scsi stuff on the
older macs accounts for much of their higher price. They also
consistently shipped with a better graphics adapter than what the
regular pc makers would ship with.
And there is one application that makes the mac platform pretty cool
over the pc. Assimilator is a fantastic tool for keeping mac coordinated
and running well as clones of each other. Norton's ghost can't hold a
candle to assimilator. Assimilator keeps a "database of deviances" that
hold things like hostname and ip address for each machine. So a rebuild
sets it up completely! When I ran the labs during final exam time, I
could assimilate 24 macs between lab exams (5-8 minutes) to guarantee
that no "extra" material was added (or subtracted) to the lab macs
during the final exams. The one semester of WinNT was a pain. The
following semester of linux had the box so locked down they students
couldn't modify the setup if the wanted to!
On Fri, 2002-04-12 at 19:33, Dow Hurst wrote:
> The bottom line here is that to equip a PC to the same level of hardware
> a Mac comes stock with, you will end up spending around the same
> amount. So the differences are really in compatibility and ease of
> use. From my experience, Mac people focus on productivity while Win/PC
> people focus on lack of productivity. ;) I had to say that...
>
> Really, it is fascinating to talk to a Mac based workgroup versus a PC
> based workgroup. The Mac people tend to talk about how to use their
> applications to accomplish tasks (similar to Linux/Unix users) while
> Win/PC workgroups tend to talk about how to work around problems to get
> work accomplished.
>
> For a non-geek user looking for a new machine, I always recommend that
> they look at a Mac. But, then I qualify that by asking how much they
> can afford! ;)
>
> My two cents,
> Dow
>
>
>
> "D. Alan Stewart" wrote:
> >
> > How 'closed'? Anyone can develop and sell a PCI board, an ATA device, a
> > USB or Firewire peripheral, or software for Apple systems. There's no pound
> > of flesh you have to give first and the information you need to do it is not hard
> > to come by. As for the computer and operating system, Apple tried 'opening'
> > that up and it almost put them out of business.
> >
> > I respect their right to make a profit. I can understand the desire to maximize
> > that profit. I try to get as much as I can for my work too! I've benefited greatly
> > from their work. What is a fair price is decided jointly by me, Apple, and the
> > market. There is a place in the world for propietary software and hardware.
> > Whether you want to buy it or not is up to you, there are plenty of people
> > who do.
> >
> > The integration and control Apple has over their platform is an advantage to
> > those that want 'no-hassle' computing. It also has allowed Apple to be
> > innovative, introducing new technology to the mass market such as: SCSI
> > (1986), 24-bit color (1987), generalized support for mulitple displays (1987), a
> > 32-bit OS (OS 7 in 1990), Quicktime, Quicktime 3D. It's allowed them to
> > make changes in their architecture that would be near impossible to achieve
> > in the Intel market: switching keyboard and mouse interfaces to ADB and
> > then to USB, switching the expansion bus from NuBus to PCI, switching
> > processor families from 68xxx to PowerPC, and now to fundamentally
> > different operating system.
> >
> > BTW, I'm the author of mtf, Linux software for reading Microsoft Tape Format
> > (NT Backup) tapes, and it is released under an open source license. My time
> > was paid for by my company. I have for 10+ years had a job writing
> > proprietary software (for Unix, DOS, Windows, and Linux). For years that has
> > been for internal use only, but within a month we will have a
> > software/hardware product for sale at $20K (and up). It's Linux-based.
> >
> > > Apple hasn't done any better -- they've just refused to allow anyone else
> > > to even enter the market in any meaningful way. All closed systems (IBM
> > > mainframes, for example) are the same.... Intel may have compatibility
> > > problems, but that's the price you pay for the advantage of being able to
> > > choose between multiple vendors.
> > >
> >
> > D. Alan Stewart
> > Senior Software Developer
> > Layton Graphics, Inc.
> > 155 Woolco Dr.
> > Marietta, GA 30062
> > Voice: 770/973-4312
> > Fax: 800/367-8192
> > FTP: ftp.layton-graphics.com
> > WWW: www.layton-graphics.com
> >
> > "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they
> > are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do
> > not refer to reality." - Albert Einstein
> >
> > ---
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> > See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be
> > sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
>
> --
> __________________________________________________________
> Dow Hurst Office: 770-499-3428
> Systems Support Specialist Fax: 770-423-6744
> 1000 Chastain Rd.
> Chemistry Department SC428 Email:dhurst at kennesaw.edu
> Kennesaw State University Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com
> Kennesaw, GA 30144
> *********************************
> *Computational Chemistry is fun!*
> *********************************
>
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--
James P. Kinney III \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and COO \ one Linux user /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \ at a time. /
770-493-8244 \.___________________________./
GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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