os of choice

I was argueing with my fiancee the other night about the mac vs windows debate and decided that I wanted more opinions about it I was also wondering where do the os's like linux fall into this. So who thinks what I'm windows shes pc and she kept trying to say that so many people like windows because it was an "all in one machine" well isn't that almost all computers in general least of all macs with there compatibility issues to every other app in the world. I would like to know what everyone thinks about this topic.

I like Mac and then Windows. I've never used Linux or any other PCs other than a Mac and Windows so I don't know about them... I do know though that a lot of people love Linux.

My friend just bought a $3000 huge screen Mac and loves it (He better for that much money).

I just bought a cheapie 400 dollar all in one computer kit (windows) to use as a hub for a network and this runs great I think it's amazing how much someone will spend on a mac and then say its great how about buying a cheapie and then let me know what they think no matter what you get when you buy the best there is it better be good. So why the mac is it because your used to them or what? I've heard many people like that they don't get viruses however macs lately have been outselling pc so just wait a while the hackers of the world will start making viruses for them too!

I'm more used to Windows than Mac... I just believe in Mac They don't have viruses and like you said, they might get some in a little while.

Macs not having viruses is a misconception. Any computer (windows or mac or linux or solaris or unix or hpux or whatever) is prone to getting viruses. The thing is that there are more windows computers out there, so when there are new viruses they infect a lot more computers. Mac viruses do exist, they just don't get the publicity others do.

As far as macs having compatibility issues, that is also a misconception. With apple computers, programmers only have one version of the operating system, and a few different hardware setups to worry about, so that makes them easier to write programs and make new hardware for and stuff, and it generally will work a little better. However with windows, you have everything from these $400 barebones kits all the way up to the multi thousands of dollars computers where no two machines are identical and there are 5 different versions of the operating system plus support for past operating systems. That is when you start running into in compatibility issues.

And to answer your original post: I'm a linux person at heart, but at home I use a mac just because its convenient and it works mostly flawlessy. I've had that computer over 2 years now and it is still just as fast as the day I bought it, I've never had issues getting printers or anything to work, and I've never had a virus.

Really I'm about to build a computer from scratch and I am thinking about running linux on it. Do you have any suggestions about that OS I've never used Linux and have seen quite a few demos about it I especially like the part where it seems like the desktop is in a cube form with six different desktops than can be running at once. What's that all about?

Getting compiz fusion or beryl or whatever it is called these days is kind of an advanced topic. You'll have to have a compatible video card with a good driver and be well versed at editing configuration files and stuff. Its best to just get a book and pick a distribution and learn from the beginning. Most linux books will come with a cd with the operating system covered in the book, so that makes choosing your first distro easy. A popular one is called ubuntu. Some people prefer fedora also. Check out http://www.distrowatch.com to help you choose. The best way to find a good distribution for you is to try a whole bunch of them and pick your favorite.

triple boot it is the only solution.
w7, snow leopard, and easier linux like ubuntu, or if making a server fedora.

What's Fedora? At risk to myself of sounding like a complete "NOOB".

http://fedoraproject.org/

Fedora is good, its one of my top choices. And in reference to dyrfin's last post, the choice of linux distro for servers is irrellevent. Like right now I am on a laptop running fedora, I'm not using it as a server. But if I turned on the httpd process (the one that serves up web pages to other computers) then it becomes a server. And right next to me on the rack I have an ubuntu box that is acting as a server because I'm running samba and LTSP on it.

I'd have to hang that on the context in question. Everyone has a preference, and of course, their reasons for choosing one over another. All the distros have strengths and weaknesses, and I believe some cater to a server environment better than others.

I'll buy that, this ubuntu server running LTSP I mentioned is junk. Ubuntu just seems to be buggy enough that when you get 50+ people logged in and running applications like the gimp or open office that use a lot of memory, the ubuntu seems to have a hard time managing that. Thats why when I get my FREAKING AWESOME 12 CORE AMD SERVER to replace this one I'm going to try slackware or gentoo on it, and maybe fedora.

For whatever reason it was that moved me at the time, I decided to try out Debian as a server, and I remain happy with its performance. I particularly enjoy the structured update schedule. Ubuntu is good for a desktop, but I don't want to spend time every day scrambling to keep my machines updated and identical (and that time slot is definitely proportional to the amount of servers involved!). I also find myself being a lot pickier with Ubuntu updates. I tend to scrounge through the releases and pick and choose what I want. With Debian, I feel like there's not so much worry of introducing unreliable code or features to my production boxes.

P.S. -

Very nice. I'm going to need to see some benchmarking when that bad boy rolls in.

If it ever rolls in..... HP seemed to have a really hard time accepting my purchase order. The first time they said it didn't have HP mentioned as the vender and the second time it wasn't signed, then the third time they said it still didn't have HP as the vendor even though I used their special PO template they sent me. I faxed the thing to them 5 times before they accepted it. It was suppose to ship within 3-5 days and then be 3-5 days for delivery, but thats the bad thing about living out in the boonies. The 3-5 day delivery time might be 2-3 weeks instead because there is only one freight company that serves such a huge area.