Matthew wrote:
> I played around with a couple of iBooks in DJs the other day, and
> could find a terminal on one easily, but couldn't find it on another
> despite several minutes of searching.
> 
> So I guess it's there, but different models go to different lengths
> to pretend to be a GUI

:-) !!

That's one thing I hate with all of the GUI things. HP, Digital, Apple, Xerox, Microsoft.... I constantly feel that I have to search for things that should be where I look for them. Helping others with their machines is depressing. Windows Explorer might be found just about anywhere, except the obvious places. "I thought this be a nice place for it."

On today's computers, I hardly use the "os gui" at all. Just the "Start menu" and the guis in the apps themselves. All serious stuff I do with the command line. (Ever tried drag-and-drop with a shaky left button? Bob only knows where your files will end up. And boy if you don't notice while Undo is still usable.)

> "Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede@nospam.org> wrote in message
> news:424933EF.2050904@nospam.org...
> 
>> Inspired by this, I tried a lamp-foot Mac at a Mac-only friend.
>> 
>> To my utter embarrasment, I couldn't find the command line?? Is it
>> true that there really isn't one? (He obviously hadn't heard of
>> such a thing, being a Mac-only person. :-( )
>> 
>> I mean, OS X is built on a real operating system, right? So, have
>> they actually hidden/removed/nuked any means to use a Mac with an
>> xterm window, ssh, or even telnet?
>> 
>> :-( Not that I'd be surprised, knowing their attitude problem.
>> 
>> Matthew wrote:
>> 
>>> "Anders F Björklund" <afb@algonet.se> wrote in message
>>> news:d24ofu$jv8$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Matthew wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Alas - partly because of the stunning lack of Apple customer
>>>>> service - I've not yet got to the point of using D on Linux.
>>>>> I'd be more than happy for people to make changes to the
>>>>> std/recls.d file in the latest release (http://recls.org/downloads.html) and feed them back to me.
>>>> 
>>>> Maybe I'm missing something here, but what does Apple's support
>>>> has to with Linux ? If anything, it should have more to do with
>>>> Mac OS X, yes ? (although I am running both Mac OS X and Linux
>>>> on my own Apple machines)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Oh, I was just going to use getting an Apple into springboarding
>>> me into doing D primarily on Linux. ;) Since they've demotivated
>>> me re buying one, it's put a crimp on that side of things.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>>> The latter is more my responsibility, since I've not (yet)
>>>>> got around to having D on Linux. Is this easy to do? If so,
>>>>> I'll bite the bullet and get it done. Then it'll all be in
>>>>> Walter's court.
>>>> 
>>>> It's not very hard to install GDC on a regular Linux
>>>> platform... There's a specfile for RPM, an ebuild for Gentoo,
>>>> and a Makefile ? http://www.algonet.se/~afb/d/Makefile
>>>> (downloads, compiles, installs)
>>>> 
>>>> Installing DMD, on a supported X86 Linux, is even easier to do
>>>> : http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?D__Tutorial/InstallingDCompiler
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks. I'll note this down. :-)
>>> 
>>> 
> 
> 

Georg Wrede wrote:

> The UI does look even nicer than in magazine pictures. And the screen with the transparent frame was kind of cool. Not to mention the small, cool globular transparent loudspeakers, which had a better sound than designed-to-death gadgets usually do.

Posting this on one, and can only agree. I like my iLamp a lot.
http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/imac17.html (still booting OS 9)

Although mine is broken since the FireWire ports, which happens
to be welded right on the motherboard, both fried a while ago...
And it's not like I can just replace it myself, like on the PC ?
(I can send the whole computer in, and pay $500 to get a new MB)

Price you pay for designer stuff, I guess... It's not like you
can actually *wash* the clothes, without going to the chemists ;-)

--anders

In article <42493EF7.8030104@nospam.org>, Georg Wrede says...
>
>Dave wrote:
>> It sounds like you were ready to spring (for an above avg. cost) new
>> system.
>> 
>> If that's the case - could I suggest something? I'm really impressed with the AMD64 chip and some of the boards coming out for it now, as well as the Linux support for them (in general). If a laptop is what you need, I've been told some of the systems running the AMD64 chip are nice as well, as long as you don't need to run them on battery a lot.
>
>There are two speeds for a computer: too slow, and adequate.
>
>Buy something 500 times faster than adequate, and you won't even see the difference to adequate. (Everything happens "right now" anyhow.) I've used the biggest Cray in the Nordic Countries, so I know.
>
>> Dual- (Windows/Linux32) or tri- (Windows/Linux32/Linux64) boot the
>> new AMD64 system and you'll have a nice all-around, reasonably
>> high-perf. system for a reasonable cost as well.
>
>Dunno. Ok, if the real motivation is to explain to wife why you need the coolest laptop around, then Linux64 might be the thing. But for non-game use, I'd use an older laptop.
>
>An older one has got several advantages: longer battery life compared to the screamers (that even burn your willy), and all popular distros install right off the box, with all hardware detected and properly configured.
>
>I bought two IBM ThinkPad T21 machines second-hand, 18 months ago. Both have a 20GB disk, and an 800MHz cpu, with 256MB ram. Got even a 6 month warranty, and Original Licenses for Windows, actually backed up by IBM service!
>
>On one, I use RedHat 9 and Windows 98, on the other Fedora 3 and Windows 2000.
>
>The Linuxes have always been Full installs, and on the windowses I have a lot of applications (Start/Programs is taller than the screen, even though I've grouped apps), Open Office, Microsoft Office, full Cygwin, graphics programs, programming languages, etc. Not having windows on NTFS file system gives me full read/write access from Linux.
>
>Not downloading music or movies lets me have ample disk space. (I'm too old to listen to music while programming, and too much "TV-watching" only erodes your IQ.)  :-) Currently I use these laptops, often side by side, with one on windows and the other on linux.
>
>> I'd also suggest making sure the Linux distro. you are thinking of using supports the board you buy, though (for example, up until recently SATA support for Linux was about 6 months behind Windows support, and you might want to Google for problems supporting the new system's Video Card - things like that).
>
>SATA and newest main boards simply are not needed for work use. Especially with Linux!

Well, I gotta chalk all this up to "it depends on what you do". If you spend a good part of the day waiting for C++ builds or DB queries to finish then I'd say that usually an upgrade to faster equipment pays off. 10 or 20 coffee breaks a day are nice, but kinda hard on the kidneys and wallet <g>

And then of course there's the gaming aspect ;)

Generally I'd agree though - top of the line systems aren't worth the extra ching. And of course there's the argument that it's better to develop (or at least test) on more 'standard' hardware to get an accurate feel how an app. will perform on most systems.

That said, AMD64 chips and boards are often a price/performance value compared to comparable Intel stuff, plus you have an upgrade path.

- Dave

Dave wrote:
> In article <42493EF7.8030104@nospam.org>, Georg Wrede says...
> 
>> Dave wrote:
>> 
>>> It sounds like you were ready to spring (for an above avg. cost)
>>> new system.
>>> 
>>> If that's the case - could I suggest something? I'm really
>>> impressed with the AMD64 chip and some of the boards coming out
>>> for it now, as well as the Linux support for them (in general).
>>> If a laptop is what you need, I've been told some of the systems
>>> running the AMD64 chip are nice as well, as long as you don't
>>> need to run them on battery a lot.
>> 
>> There are two speeds for a computer: too slow, and adequate.
>> 
>> Buy something 500 times faster than adequate, and you won't even
>> see the difference to adequate. (Everything happens "right now"
>> anyhow.) I've used the biggest Cray in the Nordic Countries, so I
>> know.
>> 
>>> Dual- (Windows/Linux32) or tri- (Windows/Linux32/Linux64) boot
>>> the new AMD64 system and you'll have a nice all-around,
>>> reasonably high-perf. system for a reasonable cost as well.
>> 
>> Dunno. Ok, if the real motivation is to explain to wife why you
>> need the coolest laptop around, then Linux64 might be the thing.
>> But for non-game use, I'd use an older laptop.
>> 
>> An older one has got several advantages: longer battery life
>> compared to the screamers (that even burn your willy), and all
>> popular distros install right off the box, with all hardware
>> detected and properly configured.
>> 
>> I bought two IBM ThinkPad T21 machines second-hand, 18 months ago.
>> Both have a 20GB disk, and an 800MHz cpu, with 256MB ram. Got even
>> a 6 month warranty, and Original Licenses for Windows, actually
>> backed up by IBM service!
>> 
>> On one, I use RedHat 9 and Windows 98, on the other Fedora 3 and
>> Windows 2000.
>> 
>> The Linuxes have always been Full installs, and on the windowses I
>> have a lot of applications (Start/Programs is taller than the
>> screen, even though I've grouped apps), Open Office, Microsoft
>> Office, full Cygwin, graphics programs, programming languages, etc.
>> Not having windows on NTFS file system gives me full read/write
>> access from Linux.
>> 
>> Not downloading music or movies lets me have ample disk space. (I'm
>> too old to listen to music while programming, and too much
>> "TV-watching" only erodes your IQ.)  :-) Currently I use these
>> laptops, often side by side, with one on windows and the other on
>> linux.
>> 
>>> I'd also suggest making sure the Linux distro. you are thinking
>>> of using supports the board you buy, though (for example, up
>>> until recently SATA support for Linux was about 6 months behind
>>> Windows support, and you might want to Google for problems
>>> supporting the new system's Video Card - things like that).
>> 
>> SATA and newest main boards simply are not needed for work use. Especially with Linux!
> 
> Well, I gotta chalk all this up to "it depends on what you do". If
> you spend a good part of the day waiting for C++ builds or DB queries
> to finish then I'd say that usually an upgrade to faster equipment
> pays off. 10 or 20 coffee breaks a day are nice, but kinda hard on
> the kidneys and wallet <g>

True! And if you don't have access to Sun Microsystems Grid (http://www.sun.com/service/utility/N1gridppu.html) no PC in the world can help you there. :-(

> And then of course there's the gaming aspect ;)

Oh, I wish I was younger...

> Generally I'd agree though - top of the line systems aren't worth the
> extra ching. And of course there's the argument that it's better to
> develop (or at least test) on more 'standard' hardware to get an
> accurate feel how an app. will perform on most systems.

True!

> That said, AMD64 chips and boards are often a price/performance value
> compared to comparable Intel stuff, plus you have an upgrade path.

I love computers, and whether I need it or not, I probably will buy one, with bad luck already this year. ;-)