[Cialug] distro for ibook

[Josh More]

I just want to point out that a lot of people on this list used to be
people who had the time to hack on hardware and mess around with
compilers.  I used to spend days getting things like ATI TV-Out to work.
 These days I look back on that and feel like a moron, because the time
savings from just running to the store and buying something that works
dramatically outweigh the cost.

I have considered Mac at various times, and am drifting more and more in
that direction.  It's awfully tempting to have a platform that is
Unix-like enough that I can get my stuff done, can be run dual-booted
with Linux so I can bounce over into something else when the Mac is too
user friendly, but still have the Mac side, so if I run in an odd
conflict, I can say "screw it", reboot and get the job done.

I think that a lot of us are sliding that way, what with our time
becoming either more valuable as we do more in business, or more rare as
we do more with our families.

It's important to remember that each of us have different requirements
for what we use, and that those requirements change as we age. 
Personally, I like Apple's hardware quality control, and I am deeply
tempted by what's available in the photospace there.  However, I have
thus far avoided them based on price and the lack of real security
tools... there's no guarantee that I'll feel that way forever.



-Josh More, RHCE, CISSP, NCLP, GIAC 
 morej at alliancetechnologies.net 
 515-245-7701

>>> Matt Stanton <inflatablesoulmate at brothersofchaos.com> 12/08/09 5:20
PM >>>
Arguing the merits of Apple's products on this list is a hard sell.  
Obviously, anyone on this list who is comfortable with linux is going to

be a person who knows how to tinker with a computer.  Telling me I have 
to shell out an extra $1000 to get a computer that 'just works' is kinda

laughable, since I have no problem making a computer do exactly what I 
want it to do.  I, like many other people on this list probably are, am 
a computer hobbyist.  If it doesn't work, I'll bust out google and mess 
with it until I figure out why it doesn't, and feel better for having 
learned something about it while getting it to work.  Over the weekend, 
I had two PCs gutted, taking parts from each of them and throwing in a 
new motherboard, RAM, and PSU to come up with a refreshed gaming machine

that is an absolute beast compared to what it was before.  Last night I 
dedicated my time to upgrading from Vista Ultimate x64 to Windows 7 
Ultimate x64, then spent the rest of the night tweaking things with the 
OS and the games I play to get all the performance I can out of the 
hardware.

Apple's market is the people with no time or patience to do that sort of

fiddling with their computers who also have the money to spend to make 
those problems go away before they happen.  They aren't the computer 
enthusiasts, the gamers, or the people who dabble in programming just 
because it's fun.  They are the business people whose time is worth a 
lot of money, the people who need a computer to just be there and work 
as expected when they need it to.  That isn't to say they aren't all 
about open-source software, programming, or dabbling, but that when they

want to get down to business, they want to get directly to work, leaving

that hobby to manifest in their personal time.

It's also not to say that Apple computers are infallible workhorses, 
either.  Apple has made its mistakes with hardware and software.  They 
have, however, managed to convince the public that those issues are 
easily resolved and very few and far between.  They have an outstanding 
record of taking the money that customers throw at them to make any 
problems that do pop up go away in a fast and convenient manner.  If I 
had a lot of money, and I could just throw it at a problem when it pops 
its head up, I'm sure I'd be very happy with any product Apple comes up 
with.  As it stands, though, I am almost masochisticly drawn to the 
challenge of forcing an otherwise unruly computer to bow its head in 
defeat.  Now that I'm done fiddling with the spawn of M$, I can get back

to the real challenge and joy of messing with Ubuntu, Apache, etc, etc, 
etc... on this poweredge server in the next room...  >:D
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