Oh god I hate PCs - I'd forgotten how much

Philtre

I've built my own PCs since 1989. Very easy to do, easier than lego, and you can choose superior parts. Every one of those PCs was reliable, required zero maintenance and lasted until I upgraded to faster specs. As for OS, stripped down WIndows is fine, Linux too.

I have to use Macs for cross-platform development. I've had MacBooks, MacbBook Pros, IMac, Minis, Airs. Every single one of them has or had a design fault. If I wasn't doing x-platform dev I could have saved myself a lot of money.

guitartango

Oh i do love the Apple+Linux+Windows vers debate, brings me back to when the Amiga pissed all over the PC. Then someone brings out Doom and everyone wants a PC

I have a laptop at home dual booting XP and Linux, I only use XP for certain applications/games and use linux for the internet.

Don't forget Apple OSX is BSD with a shiney new desktop.

guitartango

digitalscream

RaymondLin said:

Snags said:

How much did your dead 4 year old laptop cost compared to the Mac Pro?

Not necessarily the case here, but I've had soooo many conversations which essentially boiled down to "My £2,000 brand new MacBook Pro is just so much better than my five year old unmaintained cheap crap £300 laptop it's untrue. PC's are crap"

I hear more of the opposite.

People tell me "my PC is so much cheaper than your Mac and it is faster too, I just upgraded my graphic card and RAM etc etc"

But they don't tell you they spend hundreds to keep their PC up to date every year/other year, they spend ages keeping it in tip top running conditions, they know what they are doing.

Me, I spend £2k in 2012 for an iMac and spent 0 minutes doing any maintenance and £0 buying parts and use it like an appliance.  I am not IT support.  The computer should work for me, I shouldn't be working for it.

In the same 7-8 years I spent nothing and no time keeping my Mac running, never even reformatted, how much have they spent, how long have they spent on the PC is on a different planet.  I'd bet a lot more than 0 minutes and £0.

The point is that the truth is somewhere in between. A £1k PC will be of higher spec and at least as reliable as a £2k Mac, minus most of the design flaws.

When people are telling you they've spent a couple of hundred upgrading their graphics card etc, that's not maintenance - it's doing something you simply can't do with your iMac: increase its capability to take advantage of the latest games and tech. In the iMac world, there isn't any comparable activity because your iMac just isn't capable of it - to the point where not only is it not even a valid comparison, the loser in the comparison is actually the other way round!

On the other hand, you'll have spent a lot more time waiting for your machine to do things, because the OS X kernel is the slowest of the big three by a noticeable margin

Kittyfrisk

Interesting thread, showing the usual pro's & cons of various systems & configurations.

My 2012 Macbook Pro, 2.6Ghz i7 (£100 as a non runner 5 years ago) now with 16GB, 250GB Samsung SSD (freebie from dead PC at work!) & 1TB hybrid drive (£70). So apart from my time, actually cost around £200, but I know that is an exception.

It boots in 20 seconds (OS El Capitan) & can be web browsing in 30 seconds. It's pretty snappy, runs cool & does me fine for my relatively simple needs. 

Having been a Mac supporter, plus PC's + a server on a Novell network, remember them  for many years, I can say that in my experience, Mac's are actually a more trouble free, cost effective solution, certainly in an education setting.

Mac initial costs are pretty high but running costs/maintenance/ virus & malware troubleshooting are low, functional operational life is as good or better.
Don't take my subjective views here, try these  https://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-cheaper-to-own-than-windows-2016-10?r=US&IR=T
https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus-pc-in-the-enterprise/

I don't dislike PC's, after all they are just tools, but I currently have an i5 mini PC that has been the bane of my life to install windows 7/8 onto as the PC requires it's own individual drivers to be initially installed, in a specific order, before it will even function, much less allow an OS installation...grrrr.
It is now looking increasingly like a Linux box 

RaymondLin

digitalscream said:

RaymondLin said:

Snags said:

How much did your dead 4 year old laptop cost compared to the Mac Pro?

Not necessarily the case here, but I've had soooo many conversations which essentially boiled down to "My £2,000 brand new MacBook Pro is just so much better than my five year old unmaintained cheap crap £300 laptop it's untrue. PC's are crap"

I hear more of the opposite.

People tell me "my PC is so much cheaper than your Mac and it is faster too, I just upgraded my graphic card and RAM etc etc"

But they don't tell you they spend hundreds to keep their PC up to date every year/other year, they spend ages keeping it in tip top running conditions, they know what they are doing.

Me, I spend £2k in 2012 for an iMac and spent 0 minutes doing any maintenance and £0 buying parts and use it like an appliance.  I am not IT support.  The computer should work for me, I shouldn't be working for it.

In the same 7-8 years I spent nothing and no time keeping my Mac running, never even reformatted, how much have they spent, how long have they spent on the PC is on a different planet.  I'd bet a lot more than 0 minutes and £0.

The point is that the truth is somewhere in between. A £1k PC will be of higher spec and at least as reliable as a £2k Mac, minus most of the design flaws.

When people are telling you they've spent a couple of hundred upgrading their graphics card etc, that's not maintenance - it's doing something you simply can't do with your iMac: increase its capability to take advantage of the latest games and tech. In the iMac world, there isn't any comparable activity because your iMac just isn't capable of it - to the point where not only is it not even a valid comparison, the loser in the comparison is actually the other way round!

On the other hand, you'll have spent a lot more time waiting for your machine to do things, because the OS X kernel is the slowest of the big three by a noticeable margin

The point i am also making is that over the same period of time.

I spent say £2k on my PC.

They may have spent less to begin with, but how much have they spent in the same time frame and how long have they spent on maintenance.   Be it voluntary or forced.

In the end, it is just a tool to get things done, I got the same things done with the same machine from years ago, it doesn't run any slower so no need to upgrade.  Obviously, if they spent no money and no time then that's a point to PC but in my experience a lot of PC user that I know won't last that long.

They either know what they are doing, thus know they can upgrade, and spend money on it and keep it running well.

Or they don't know what they are doing, hence getting all kinds of malware on it and it runs like a dog and dies way early.

guitartango

Kittyfrisk said:

Interesting thread, showing the usual pro's & cons of various systems & configurations.

My 2012 Macbook Pro, 2.6Ghz i7 (£100 as a non runner 5 years ago) now with 16GB, 250GB Samsung SSD (freebie from dead PC at work!) & 1TB hybrid drive (£70). So apart from my time, actually cost around £200, but I know that is an exception.

It boots in 20 seconds (OS El Capitan) & can be web browsing in 30 seconds. It's pretty snappy, runs cool & does me fine for my relatively simple needs. 

Having been a Mac supporter, plus PC's + a server on a Novell network, remember them  for many years, I can say that in my experience, Mac's are actually a more trouble free, cost effective solution, certainly in an education setting.

Mac initial costs are pretty high but running costs/maintenance/ virus & malware troubleshooting are low, functional operational life is as good or better.
Don't take my subjective views here, try these  https://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-cheaper-to-own-than-windows-2016-10?r=US&IR=T
https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus-pc-in-the-enterprise/

I don't dislike PC's, after all they are just tools, but I currently have an i5 mini PC that has been the bane of my life to install windows 7/8 onto as the PC requires it's own individual drivers to be initially installed, in a specific order, before it will even function, much less allow an OS installation...grrrr.
It is now looking increasingly like a Linux box 

Got my first real job in IT using Novell

LordOxygen

I've always built my own PCs. First one was back in the late 90s with windows 98se.
Most recently 2014 i built a Silent (fanless) PC which sits under the telly as a media server for the house. Runs win10 and its been faultess as have all the computers ive spec'd and built myself.

Retail computers are full of crap software.

A clean OS install on a fresh HDD is the way to go.

Kittyfrisk

^  @guitartango   And when doing a Comp.Studies course, I wrote a BASIC random number generator programme that then did 3 different sort routines (insertion, selection & bubble) before printing out the results.
My Atari 1040STE did it so fast that I thought I'd written it wrong. I had to increase the numbers generated by a factor of 100 just to show it was actually working and it still took under a minute.
386 PC that we were using on the course ( OK for the time, 1980's), took 20 odd minutes using the exact same code.
I had to bring my Atari in, along with a friends Amiga, to prove to the lecturer that it was true 

earwighoney

LordOxygen said:

I've always built my own PCs. First one was back in the late 90s with windows 98se.
Most recently 2014 i built a Silent (fanless) PC which sits under the telly as a media server for the house. Runs win10 and its been faultess as have all the computers ive spec'd and built myself.

Retail computers are full of crap software.

A clean OS install on a fresh HDD is the way to go.

I agree with that but I think with SDD prices being what they are, putting in a new SDD and installing your OS on that makes a difference.  

Kittyfrisk

^  +1 Huge difference, even with a small capacity boot disk + secondary storage.

guitartango

Kittyfrisk said:

^  @guitartango   And when doing a Comp.Studies course, I wrote a BASIC random number generator programme that then did 3 different sort routines (insertion, selection & bubble) before printing out the results.
My Atari 1040STE did it so fast that I thought I'd written it wrong. I had to increase the numbers generated by a factor of 100 just to show it was actually working and it still took under a minute.
386 PC that we were using on the course ( OK for the time, 1980's), took 20 odd minutes using the exact same code.
I had to bring my Atari in, along with a friends Amiga, to prove to the lecturer that it was true 

yeah a friend of mine did the Ch4 Racing Subtitles on a Amiga as the PC could not handle this

Philtre

Can we turn this into a Dyson vs other vacuum cleaner brand thread now?

I used to have a Dyson, but it sucked. Now I use a Henry. Much cheaper and more reliable.

darthed1981

earwighoney said:

LordOxygen said:

I've always built my own PCs. First one was back in the late 90s with windows 98se.
Most recently 2014 i built a Silent (fanless) PC which sits under the telly as a media server for the house. Runs win10 and its been faultess as have all the computers ive spec'd and built myself.

Retail computers are full of crap software.

A clean OS install on a fresh HDD is the way to go.

I agree with that but I think with SDD prices being what they are, putting in a new SDD and installing your OS on that makes a difference.  

I suspect that lordoxygen means a freshly formatted disk, rather than recommending an HDD over an SSD, which you correctly point out are getting nice and cheap.

prowla

Here's a screendump of one monitor on my Linux Mint PC, with VMs open running Ubuntu, WIndows 10, Windows 7, Mint, and Mac.

I can configure similar VMs on Windows or Mac PCs if I choose to, which I find is a good way of working and keeping things apart. Standing up another Linux VM is especially easy, as there's no licence key required.

prowla

Kittyfrisk said:

^  @guitartango   And when doing a Comp.Studies course, I wrote a BASIC random number generator programme that then did 3 different sort routines (insertion, selection & bubble) before printing out the results.
My Atari 1040STE did it so fast that I thought I'd written it wrong. I had to increase the numbers generated by a factor of 100 just to show it was actually working and it still took under a minute.
386 PC that we were using on the course ( OK for the time, 1980's), took 20 odd minutes using the exact same code.
I had to bring my Atari in, along with a friends Amiga, to prove to the lecturer that it was true 

I've got an Atari in the loft.

Kittyfrisk

prowla said:

Kittyfrisk said:

^  @guitartango   And when doing a Comp.Studies course, I wrote a BASIC random number generator programme that then did 3 different sort routines (insertion, selection & bubble) before printing out the results.
My Atari 1040STE did it so fast that I thought I'd written it wrong. I had to increase the numbers generated by a factor of 100 just to show it was actually working and it still took under a minute.
386 PC that we were using on the course ( OK for the time, 1980's), took 20 odd minutes using the exact same code.
I had to bring my Atari in, along with a friends Amiga, to prove to the lecturer that it was true 

I've got an Atari in the loft.

I've still got mine downstairs   It's hogged out to the max, with 4Mb of memory!!! That alone cost me £200 in 1986 
Plus the AdSCSI card & 40Mb HD, it was a beast in it's day.
Must dig it out & give a spin, it always kicked the arses of PC's & Mac's for MIDI capability 

PolarityMan

WiresDreamDisasters said:

digitalscream said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Linux just isn't a serious option for anything related to audio or video production, and it never will be because there is no money in making software for Linux. Nerds do it out of some sort of loyalty, but big business pretty much ignores it in terms of the end customer. So that's why I've never jumped into it. Yes there are options to replace Cubase, Reaper, Studio One, et al. And yes there are options to replace Premiere Pro, Final Cut, and Resolve. And yes there are ways to run VST's on Linux.

But fuck that. I wanna turn a computer on and make stuff.

It's interesting...the only real problem I've found doing audio work on Linux is the iLok dependency - almost all the other plugins I've tried work just fine by simply copying and renaming a file after installing the VST wrapper with a single click. And oddly, I've found that Windows VSTs like Helix Native actually run more efficiently under Linux than they do under Windows (at least under the Linux version of Reaper), which makes no sense at all.

As for options to replace Resolve...that would be silly, because there's a native Linux version

Of course, I'm not recommending that everyone goes to Linux, because there's a certain amount of setup that goes into getting a Linux machine audio-ready; that process is pretty trivial these days (it's pretty much down to adding a repository and a few clicks after that), but the main issues are a) knowing what you need to install (if you don't know what you need, you'll find it difficult to frame the question to Google), and b) selecting the right hardware because not all audio interfaces are supported, although that's getting better these days as more interfaces are becoming class-compliant.

This is an education in cherry picking. You know precisely what I mean  

Yeah you can cherry pick by giving apt-get a specific versoin info, theres not alot you cant accomplish using spt and dpkg.

TimmyO

I think the most surprising thing is that some of you have seen a vagina in real life 

PolarityMan

TimmyO said:

I think the most surprising thing is that some of you have seen a vagina in real life 

At least I can operate simple machinary gramps.