Mac OS X or Windows?

rubyonrails-talk
1

All of the above?

By that I mean Mac OS X.

With VMware Fusion I've got Leopard, XP, Vista and Ubuntu (just for kicks) and I can run them all simultaneously.

When I'm slapping up an app (especially the CSS) I get Safari, Firefox, Windows XP IE 6, and a Vista IE 7 windows open all in one "Space" (multiple desktops) and refresh my way to cross-browser compatibility bliss. It's funny to see an OS X window behind an XP window, behind a Vista window all behaving in one desktop--like they all belong there). I don't have to code for one and then adjust for others, I just code for them all at once.

(It also doesn't hurt that the core developers of Rails all use OS X and TextMate and that Rails comes with the Leopard either)

2

How can I get Mac OS X running under Windows? How did you've done that with VMware?

The sad news is, you can't. At least not without using very specific PC hardware configuration and an illegally cracked copy of OS X. OS X will only work on Mac hardware (and in the case of OEM versions, I believed it's locked to the specific model of your computer).

I think that's the other reason people generally recommend Macs. It's easy to run all 3 operating systems, but you can't do it the other way around. I certainly can't blame you for not wanting to put up the money, though. If you want OS X, you might want to look into a Mac Mini, it's not the most powerful system, but it should be fine for web dev.

3

While the hardware might be a bit more expensive at first, I think that the case can be made that the total cost of ownership is at a par or perhaps less than a windows machine.

Most of the Mac software I use is either open source/freeware or quite reasonably priced. I find that I can "afford" more software for the Mac than for Windows.

And for Ruby/Rails work I definitely prefer Mac first, Linux or other open source posix system (e.g. BSD) second, and windows a distant third.

4

Hey thanks for your answers!

I think Mac OS has the better programs for developing with rails
(e.g. Textmate or cocoa MySQL), but I only have a windows machine and Macs are not very cheap I think.

While the hardware might be a bit more expensive at first, I think that the case can be made that the total cost of ownership is at a par or perhaps less than a windows machine.

And (at least in my opinion), while $2000-$2500 for a mac book pro is
a decent chunk of cash in absolute terms, I don't consider to be much
given that it is my main work tool, which I spend the best part of
most days looking at.

Fred

5

Also if you hurry, since the new penryn Macbooks and Mackbook pros were just released, this is a good time to pick up a very slightly back level model for a good price. They're probably going quickly but google can probably ferret out some bargains. The new models don't really add that much unless you REALLY want a pro with a multi-touch trackpad.

6

Rick Denatale wrote:

While the hardware might be a bit more expensive at first, I think that the case can be made that the total cost of ownership is at a par or perhaps less than a windows machine.

Or just get a Livino (formerly IBM ThinkPad) Ubantu (RedHat Linux) based laptop from:

for between $700 - $1700 and stick with Linux everywhere!

7

Definitely go for the intel processor.

8

Refurbished iMacs are as low as $999 from Apple. Refurbished MacBooks are as low as $850. Maximize the RAM from an online store and you've got a great machine.

I just "upgraded" my MacBook. I bought it for $999, sold it on eBay for $850 a year later and used that $850 to get a new one for $999. What is that? $12/mo. cost? That's cheap in anybody's book. Even Blue Hippo!! Macs are piles of trash after a couple years. Cost of ownership is much lower (and explicit costs aren't that different anymore with comparable specs, they just don't ship "junk" as Jobs says).

9

FYI, Red Hat and Ubuntu are different distributions, based around different approaches to Linux. Ubuntu is based on Debian which is widely regarded as being one of the best choices due to its stability and scalability.

10

rpflorence wrote:

Macs are piles of trash after a couple years.

Don't want to get off topic, but I think the opposite of this is true. I see a lot of people and businesses hold on to their old Macs, even for production use. We've got everything from Mac Pros to Quicksilver G4s being used at my office. Looking at the system requirements for leopard, it should be able to run on systems around 5 years old. Try to run Vista on a system that old.

They also hold their value much longer, judging by ebay listings.

I think if you're going to be buying a higher end system, I think a Mac is a pretty good investment.

11

What are you basing this on?

12

Linux is Linux but Ubuntu is free (as in cost) and Red Hat is not.

13

… but Fedora is. Fedora is the community version of Red Hat, just like OpenSuSE is the community edition of SuSE.

That said, i prefer Ubuntu over other distributions, but it is a personal choice in the end.

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

14

Sure, but the OP was specifically talking about Red Hat...

15

Hi there, I thought I'd just add my 2c in this conversation because it seemed like no one had any real evidence to give for each environment.

There are a few good reasons I thought one environment differs over the next that I've had personal experience with:

Some things don't run on windows (Background processing)

16

I think your statement => "PC's are about 1/2 the price of a mac for a system with the same specs" is not correct...

15" macbook pro is $1990... Go to Dell and get the 15" xps with the same specs and you are very close. (almost $1800) Thats not including Vista pro. (or whatever they call it.)

The macbook is more expensive (just not 50% more) but you get a better product.

17

Yeah you're probably right. I didn't audit my post well enough! I was looking at prices in NZ, a 15" macbook pro here is about 3.2k, and a dell I'd been looking at a few weeks ago was about 2.3k (inspiron), still not 50% though! Ha, I'll just say that I was just rounding to the nearest 50% :slight_smile: it's actually about 70% the cost.

18

Hi there, I thought I'd just add my 2c in this conversation because it seemed like no one had any real evidence to give for each environment.

There are a few good reasons I thought one environment differs over the next that I've had personal experience with:

Some common things are annoying on macs (Image manipulation) ----------------------------------------- If you are planning on doing any kind of decent image manipulation, most of what rails has to offer is wrappers for imagemagick. Imagemagick (I've heard) is horrible to install on a mac. However, from personal experience, it is a piece of cake on windows and linux (if you use package management systems like on debian or ubunutu). There are other image manipulation plugins (ImageScience) that don't use imagemagick, but last time I checked they could only create thumbnails, and it couldn't process as many file types.

Image magick was as easy as `port install ImageMagick` for me. The only thing that makes rmagick easy on windows is that there is a prebuilt package, which is both a blessing and a curse. A while back there was not up to date binary package for several weeks for example. In general the fact that as a windows use you either need to rely on prebuilt packages or need to have visual C++ (if you want your extensions to run against the prebuilt ruby) or compile it all yourself via cygwin is a pain.

Command Line, Development Environments, Speed etc. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

People have mentioned command lines a lot (apparently you can't use one on windows?). I use command line on windows all-the-time. Every command that you'd want to run for rails development from the command line you can do in any operating system.

The windows shell has always seemed a bit horrible to me. but that's just my opinion. The other thing is that last time I heard, all of rails core was using a mac.

Fred

19

People have mentioned command lines a lot (apparently you can't use one on windows?). I use command line on windows all-the-time. Every command that you'd want to run for rails development from the command line you can do in any operating system.

True but comparing the windows "shell" to a real shell in UNIX/Linux/Macs is like comparing a Ford Escort to a luxury Cadillac. Sorry, the Windows "shell" is truly godawful.

Windows and OSX are easy to use for anyone. Linux is easy to use for seasoned geeks (no offence). So if you're a noob (no offence), then don't choose linux right off the bat I guess...

Yeah, clicking through a menu in Ubuntu is so much harder than clicking through a menu in Windows or Mac. NOT.

I switch monitors twice a day (work and home) with different resolutions

Why?

, that was just craaaaaazy. I never quite got the hang of it...

...or never bothered to learn about.

That's my 2c! Correct me if anything I said was wrong :slight_smile:

I just did :slight_smile:

20

True but comparing the windows "shell" to a real shell in UNIX/Linux/Macs is like comparing a Ford Escort to a luxury Cadillac. Sorry, the Windows "shell" is truly godawful.

This seems very opinion based... why? Personally I've never found a rails-related command that you can use in a unix system that you can't use in windows. The only differences I have noticed is that you can run unix specific commands like top or ps or something, which isn't really related to rails, and aren't needed in windows.

However, unix does have very good security! You can't do certain naughty things without the sudo command, which on a server is great, but I hate it on a development box because it just means that I have to type the same command twice when I need it (definately not DRY). I usually try to rid myself of as many barriers as possible on a development box.

Yeah, clicking through a menu in Ubuntu is so much harder than clicking through a menu in Windows or Mac. NOT.

Sure, the menu systems are pretty easy, I was more thinking of side cases, like monitors for example. When you are configuring the resolutions for your monitors you need to edit a config file. Hardly something I'd leave up to my mother to do for herself.

I gave some examples of third party software didn't work. What happens now? You can't ring support and complain, because unix users are supposed to be smart enough to fix it themselves. You can be assured that no one is running around frantically trying to fix it (like I said, flash player was broken for months). No one is trying to fix it because they expect people to fix it themselves, and frankly they're not losing any money by putting it off. So, how do you fix it? You get the latest source, link it, compile it, etc. Would I expect my mother to do that?

> I switch monitors twice a day > (work and home) with different resolutions

Why?

I have a laptop, I like to connect it to a large external monitor when I am using it for sustained periods of time, this is work and home, and I have different sized monitors at each.

> , that was just craaaaaazy. > I never quite got the hang of it...

...or never bothered to learn about.

This is true, I never learned about it. Still, I prefer not to have to edit a config file every time I connect my laptop to a new monitor or projector.

> That's my 2c! Correct me if anything I said was wrong :slight_smile:

I just did :slight_smile:

You did? When I said that I was inviting people to make constructive points. Not just flame. Don't be a hater man :slight_smile: