I’ve recently switched from a Linux laptop to an iMac. The reason for this decision was very simple. I was tired of spending most of my time, fixing and endlessly customizing Linux. Don’t get me wrong though! I loved my time with Linux. I’ve learned quite a lot of stuff “playing” around with it. After a point however, it just isn’t worth my time to spend hours into making Linux work/perform the way I want it to. And then do it all over again when you try to upgrade to a new distro. I ended up doing a fresh install every time and having a script to re-install all the programs I needed. That with a separate /home/ partition provided an easier and safer, believe it or not, solution to an upgrade of Ubuntu. After a point I realized I was spending more time fixing or changing Linux to facilitate me in what I wanted to do, rather than doing the things I needed to be doing.
I needed a machine that literally got out of my way and let me work efficiently and easily. The most appropriate solution was the new iMac. The actual tactile interface is like something I’ve never worked with before. That’s a 27″ monitor that doesn’t make a ‘peep’ when it’s working. And I mean both fan noise and the HDD harassment Windows is performing when doing memory paging. That is a sound I only hear now when I fire up the Parallels version of Windows 7.
I still use the Office 2010 platform. I think it’s one of the most professional tools out there for office work. It’s not strange that Apple has “allowed” this platform to be run natively on Macs. I also use some simulation software that are only available on the windows platform. The Parallels VMs are great at providing a seamless integration of Windows into the OSX and also to have an option to work with Ubuntu when I need it. MacPorts is surprisingly useful for installing CRAN packages in R. On another note, I had to see OSX put itself to sleep to fully appreciate how Sleep should work and how flawed the attempts of Windows and Linux are when trying to do the same thing.
I’ll be returning to this subject in regards with certain productivity apps I’ve found useful up to now. Feel free to share yours as well.