[linux-audio-user] intel core 2 duo and amd turion 64x2

[Frank]

david wrote:
> Frank wrote:
>> david wrote:
>>> carmen wrote:
>>>> On Fri Mar 09, 2007 at 07:43:00PM -1000, david wrote:
>>>>> ljc at internet.com.uy wrote:
>>>>>> hello list, i intend to buy a new laptop, and i'm undecided
>>>>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> if Apple is selling a notebook for $1099 and HP is selling the same
>>>> thing for $599, i'd get the HP - call me crazy
>>>
>>> HP is NOT selling the same quality as Apple. You get what you pay for.
>>>
>>
>> If you're in the habit of occasionally challenging your 
>> preconceptions do this little experiment:  Visit Dell, just for 
>> convenience - or pick another if you wish, and configure a laptop 
>> with the same features and specs as a MacBook Pro - ignore the 
>> elegance of the OS and its heart of BSD...even ignore the simplicity 
>> and speed with which it runs multiple GNU/Linux distros in nothing 
>> more difficult or risky than a simple file constituting a Parallels 
>> Desktop VM, and get back to us with either a verification of your 
>> comparison factor or a new-found appreciation for the value of 
>> opinions based upon verifiable facts.
>
> My opinion of HP/Compaq is based on my verifiable experience with 
> them. Not a preconception.
>
> My experience with Dell - having spent 11 years on a corporate Help 
> Desk during the time the corporation switched from IBM Thinkpads to 
> Dell laptops - is also based on facts. The number of hardware problems 
> reported to the help desk for Dell laptops was five times higher than 
> we had reported for the IBM laptops. Even OLD Thinkpads had fewer 
> problem reports than NEW Dell laptops.
>
> That may have changed since IBM is no longer the quality determiner 
> for their old brand.
>
Sorry David, we're not talking about the same thing, and I don't mean to 
appear on a mission here.  I reflexively dismissed Macintosh on the 
grounds of high cost due to marketing profile and practices of the 
single-source supplier.  I also didn't like OS 9.  When the Intel/OS X 
sun rose I saw things in a somewhat different light.  Parallels Desktop 
took me to the Apple store.

Having read an analysis - it should be easy enough to find on the 
Internet, by admittedly a Mac fanboy challenging the "common wisdom" of 
premium price, actually item-by-item illustrated price parity.  No 
hysteria, no opinion, no evangelistic blindness.  Dollars, cents and sense.

I hopped onto Dells Web site and configured one of their XPS laptops as 
close to my MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo @ 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB drive, 
15.4 cinema ratio screen, all-everything optical drive, extreme airport 
wireless, Bluetooth, digital audio input, USB 2, IEEE1394 400 and 800, 
etc.  The Dell was more expensive.  A freaking Dell. 

Both were with my educator's discount - with the white MacBook, slower 
processor and smaller drive, but all the other goodies coming in at 
$1049, and the absolutely, positively, ass-kicking MacBook Pro that I 
chose running $1799.  Yeah, that's a pile of bucks but it's a remarkably 
sophisticated and dignified computer.  (I backed up to add the previous 
paragraph, so momentarily going back to what I've already alluded 
to...and you haven't read yet - my Dell 470 workstation with 2 3.0GHz 
Xeons, gig of RAM, 2 10,000 RPM Segate SCSI drives in RAID array, nVidia 
workstation graphics, premium audio, 19" digital panel, etc. was around 
3 grand!   Not boasting here.  Did I mention education?  I didn't 
mention my 1996 Jeep.  Some people spend their disposable income one 
way, some spend it other ways.  I spend my meager portion on creative 
tools that give me great pleasure and make me as productive as I'm able 
to be.)

Again, that's without the 1" aluminum case completely devoid of bullshit 
keys, buttons, flashing lights, fins, air scoops, whatever.  Also, 
that's with, what's it called...Windows, and again ignoring the Mac's 
highly refined OS X and its BSD underpinnings. 

For someone coming from nearly exclusive use of GNU/Linux including 
extensive application development projects for school - since 1998 - I 
felt unexpectedly at home, right out of the box.  Then I installed 
Parallels Desktop!

I immediately dropped several distros into VMs - which as I mentioned 
are nothing more than a file of a couple gigs size.  Didn't like 
Ubuntu?  Delete the file.  Wanna try something on the spur of a moment?  
Don't want to further sub-divide your hard drive?  Partitions a pain?  
Three or four clicks and you've got another VM up with the installer of 
another OS right in front of you.

My long-awaited copy of the Solaris 10 kit arrived in the mail last 
week.  Three or four clicks (though an inordinate period of filesystem 
activity) and I was looking at the Java desktop.  I even dropped my XP 
Pro SP2 and Office 2003 that came with this Dell 470 SMP workstation I'm 
writing from, and both phoned home and were activated uneventfully.

Coherence mode in Parallels supports running a single Windows app 
directly from an icon having it appear right on the Mac desktop looking 
like a native program.  Wanna blow a few more minds than you 
accomplished with that last trick?  Run the whole damned black-kingdom 
OS in coherence!  Look - up at the top...what's that?  The OS X task 
bar.  Look - down at the bottom...what's that?  The Windows task bar.  
Launch applications from one, the other, both.

Sorry to ramble here, and did I say I didn't want to sound on a 
mission?  I could simply have said: "Actually, with all the high-end 
attributes of the current Mac laptop line, feature-for-feature they're 
about the same price as a typical PC."  I could have added they're a 
great choice for a user dwelling under a Unix class star (Linus!).

Frank