Mac Users Inside please
 

Okay, I know Windows and Linux and I am wondering what the learning curve for Mac OSX is. I am thinking of getting a Laptop, and I am deciding on what brand/os. Any input?

Is there still a "Command-Prompt" or "Bash Shell" within OSX? I am a command-line-commando, and am not sure if this is available.

I will be using photoshop, dreamweaver, ssh, ftp, and the usual productivity suites (i.e. word, wordperfect, write).


Thoughts?

For me the learning curve was a little steep. But short and steep. :winkwink:

Having never used a Mac before getting my notebook, I didn't really know what to do, but after a couple hours playing around I really enjoyed OSX. After a few days you'll probably feel right at home if you've used Linux before...

A shell and everything else you might expect from a Unix is of course available - you can even go as far as installing Fink to install all (well, most) of you favourite Linux applications as precompiled packages.

You won't regret getting a Mac. If anything, you'll make your friends and business partners switch too in a few months. :1orglaugh

macintosh's are ONLY good for graphics editing (photoshop) and video editing (iMovie)...

I learned basic osx functionality in about 5 days. its REALLY easy man.

yeah really easy. though i use mac for designing..

pretty true.

they can RIP up the processing for those tasks without sweating...

everything else can be done with window, or linux for free.

Strangely it's exactly those two tasks I prefer to do on my windows box (WAY faster) while I do everything else on my Mac or Linux workstation.

Of course it's just a pansy little iBook, but for the costs of an PowerMac you can get a big-ass Windows workstation which will do, judging from my expirience, quite as well as that Mac for Photoshop and Video editing. Then again, you'll have to deal with Windows instead of OSX, so going for Apple might be money well spent... :1orglaugh

OSX is like having a linux or BSD machine at your fingertips, with apples amazing user interface. Install the developer tools, and X11 and you can compile and run any *nix application out there. You can run X11 in rootless mode so that all X11 apps will display on your apple desktop with a window manager that works and looks like cocoa. You can also use it in root mode where you have a full screen dedicated to X11, you can run your favorite *nix desktop enviroment (KDE,Gnome, WindowMaker etc).

It comes preinstalled with a great terminal app, bash prompt, and of course, openssh. The open source developer world has really rallied around OSX and almost all usefull open source apps i find work great on it, and have tons of support. You'll really be amazed at how much OSX is part of the linux/unix community now.

Hell, they have ported WINE to OSX intel, so its possible to run many windows apps natively. http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06...over/index.php not to mention you can dual boot with XP now. Gentoo linux is booting on the intel macs now, and its will be a short while till the other distros follow suit.

Mac is simply the platform now with the most software options, period. I'm loving my new macbook :)

... and PC's are only good for playing games :1orglaugh

Seriously, that's not true anymore. I'm working on Mac and do everything and much more. OSX is the most advanced OS.

You are an idiot. Keep your mouth closed.

When you get your Macbook Pro you can now install Windows as well via Apple's Boot Camp App. So making the transition will be easier :thumbsup