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- Feb 13, 2005
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Hi all, long time lurk...actually not really. Short time lurker first time poster.
I'm about to take the plunge and get a Mac Mini to use as my primary home computer. Just to give you some background I am primarily a UNIX guy who at my place of work uses a mix of Windows work stations, UNIX (Tru64, HP/UX, AIX, Solaris, Linux, etc.) servers, Windows servers, and the occasional Mac for testing. At my desk at work and at home I primarily use a Linux workstation with X11 to do all of my day to day work plus at home casual surfing, email, Photoshop (digital darkroom kind of stuff with digicam photos and Photoshop contests) and some light audio work.
I have always thought that Macs were very well designed computers especially since OS X with it's UNIX (BSD, Mach really) design but the cost was always outside of what I would care to purchase. I could always build an Intel machine if not cheaper, at the very least spread it over time and build up a computer that would eventually fit my needs and install whichever OS would be best for whatever it was I would be using it for. Now, however, the Mac Mini with its price entry point has made me re-think my home computing needs. So of course before I make the plunge I have a few questions. This will be replacing my home computer which is an Intel machine running RedHat Linux 9. I have researched a great deal of what Macs can do, and know that they can handle about 99% if not 110% of what I use my Linux box for (Email, surfing, audio/music, CD burning, multimedia, and of course Photoshop) but there are some "look and feel" questions I have with the OS X GUI that you folks could probably answer better than other places on the web I have searched. None of these are deal-breakers since I know that there are always changes that need to be adapted to in order to make a switch of this magnitude. So I'll be getting the Mac regardless but in the meantime....
1) Gnome, KDE, and other Linux window managers provide for 'multiple desktops' which on Linux I use to group different types of tasks into these different desktops. At work I have them divided into four desktops each of which has individual 'themes': email, web browsers, X terminals, and miscellaneous. At home I find that this is not nearly as stringent of a requirement. However is there a way to mimic this same multi-desktop ability on the Mac? This is not critical since at home I can probably deal with just having everything in one desktop since I don't do nearly as many things at home. I have a separate employer supplied computer to do work related stuff.
2) On Linux/UNIX window managers there is the concept of a clipboard which grabs things as soon as they are highlighted, and can be yanked out by using the middle mouse button. This has the effect of being able to highlight anything and being immediately accessible without accessing any menus. In other words a copy/paste is as simple as highlighting what I want to grab and when I switch to the window I wish to paste it's a middle mouse click away from pasting it without fiddling with menus or keys. The workflow is highlight->switch->middle-click-paste. Is there a similar type of thing on the Mac or will I need to fiddle with menus/right-click/select as I do with Windows?
3) On Linux/UNIX window managers there is a feature (which I think I'm the only one who likes this) known as 'auto-raise', in which whatever window the mouse goes to raises the window without clicking within it. It is also known as 'focus follows mouse'. Is there a similar ability within the Mac OS X GUI?
4) The Mac Mini does not appear to have any audio input jack. I understand that there are USB adapters which would allow audio input of, say, a microphone to facilitate recording to an application running on the Mac. Do these add-on devices work as well as the mic input on an Intel/sound-card type of computer? This is somewhat important as otherwise I would have to fire up the old linux box to record audio for transfer to the Mac for post processing; something I would rather not have to do.
Okay, I now see that this post has gotten very long for a n00b to come in and ask these kinds of questions imbedded within so much history, but at the same time I know that the Mac community is very passionate about their choice of hardware/software platform. I know the answers are out there, but I thought I'd ask those who live and breathe the Mac way.
I'm about to take the plunge and get a Mac Mini to use as my primary home computer. Just to give you some background I am primarily a UNIX guy who at my place of work uses a mix of Windows work stations, UNIX (Tru64, HP/UX, AIX, Solaris, Linux, etc.) servers, Windows servers, and the occasional Mac for testing. At my desk at work and at home I primarily use a Linux workstation with X11 to do all of my day to day work plus at home casual surfing, email, Photoshop (digital darkroom kind of stuff with digicam photos and Photoshop contests) and some light audio work.
I have always thought that Macs were very well designed computers especially since OS X with it's UNIX (BSD, Mach really) design but the cost was always outside of what I would care to purchase. I could always build an Intel machine if not cheaper, at the very least spread it over time and build up a computer that would eventually fit my needs and install whichever OS would be best for whatever it was I would be using it for. Now, however, the Mac Mini with its price entry point has made me re-think my home computing needs. So of course before I make the plunge I have a few questions. This will be replacing my home computer which is an Intel machine running RedHat Linux 9. I have researched a great deal of what Macs can do, and know that they can handle about 99% if not 110% of what I use my Linux box for (Email, surfing, audio/music, CD burning, multimedia, and of course Photoshop) but there are some "look and feel" questions I have with the OS X GUI that you folks could probably answer better than other places on the web I have searched. None of these are deal-breakers since I know that there are always changes that need to be adapted to in order to make a switch of this magnitude. So I'll be getting the Mac regardless but in the meantime....
1) Gnome, KDE, and other Linux window managers provide for 'multiple desktops' which on Linux I use to group different types of tasks into these different desktops. At work I have them divided into four desktops each of which has individual 'themes': email, web browsers, X terminals, and miscellaneous. At home I find that this is not nearly as stringent of a requirement. However is there a way to mimic this same multi-desktop ability on the Mac? This is not critical since at home I can probably deal with just having everything in one desktop since I don't do nearly as many things at home. I have a separate employer supplied computer to do work related stuff.
2) On Linux/UNIX window managers there is the concept of a clipboard which grabs things as soon as they are highlighted, and can be yanked out by using the middle mouse button. This has the effect of being able to highlight anything and being immediately accessible without accessing any menus. In other words a copy/paste is as simple as highlighting what I want to grab and when I switch to the window I wish to paste it's a middle mouse click away from pasting it without fiddling with menus or keys. The workflow is highlight->switch->middle-click-paste. Is there a similar type of thing on the Mac or will I need to fiddle with menus/right-click/select as I do with Windows?
3) On Linux/UNIX window managers there is a feature (which I think I'm the only one who likes this) known as 'auto-raise', in which whatever window the mouse goes to raises the window without clicking within it. It is also known as 'focus follows mouse'. Is there a similar ability within the Mac OS X GUI?
4) The Mac Mini does not appear to have any audio input jack. I understand that there are USB adapters which would allow audio input of, say, a microphone to facilitate recording to an application running on the Mac. Do these add-on devices work as well as the mic input on an Intel/sound-card type of computer? This is somewhat important as otherwise I would have to fire up the old linux box to record audio for transfer to the Mac for post processing; something I would rather not have to do.
Okay, I now see that this post has gotten very long for a n00b to come in and ask these kinds of questions imbedded within so much history, but at the same time I know that the Mac community is very passionate about their choice of hardware/software platform. I know the answers are out there, but I thought I'd ask those who live and breathe the Mac way.