Asking some feedback

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First of all, greetings to everyone in the forum.
And I hope I'm posting this in the right section. If not, I appologize.

I'm currently considering in buying a new computer, and I'm considering a Mac.
I never owned a Mac before and I'd like to get some feedback from the community first.


1. First of all, I need to uderstand more or less the life expectancy of a MacBook. So this question of mostly for the eldest Mac users. Durability can really be a deal breaker for me.

2. Secondly, other OS compatibilities. On my line of work, I have to work and use multiple OSs, namelly Windows, some GNU/Linux distros and Solaris.
I also need to know the machine control that is give to these systems. For example, I've been told that to make a partition and installing a new OS in a Mac, you'll need the OSX CD, but after you install, lets say Windows, can it freely magage at least its partition and create new ones from it, as install other OSs?

3. Non-apple hardware compatibility (printers, drives, HDD's, etc)

4. I mostly intend to be a work computer, but, you know, a guy has his needs, so games: even if (and specially) using Windows for most games, what is your experience with it as a game machine?

5. MacOS software development: anything I should know before getting into that?

And that's all I can remember to ask for now. Thanks in advance.
 

cwa107


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Your Mac's Specs
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First of all, greetings to everyone in the forum.
And I hope I'm posting this in the right section. If not, I appologize.

I'm currently considering in buying a new computer, and I'm considering a Mac.
I never owned a Mac before and I'd like to get some feedback from the community first.


1. First of all, I need to uderstand more or less the life expectancy of a MacBook. So this question of mostly for the eldest Mac users. Durability can really be a deal breaker for me.

The useful lifespan for any notebook (Mac or otherwise) is generally 3-5 years. Macs are generally higher end machines, so they will generally be useful for the longer end of that spectrum.

2. Secondly, other OS compatibilities. On my line of work, I have to work and use multiple OSs, namelly Windows, some GNU/Linux distros and Solaris.
I also need to know the machine control that is give to these systems. For example, I've been told that to make a partition and installing a new OS in a Mac, you'll need the OSX CD, but after you install, lets say Windows, can it freely magage at least its partition and create new ones from it, as install other OSs?

It's standard x86 hardware. So whatever can run on an x86 platform, can run on an Intel-based Mac. And yes, given appropriate installation media and backups, you can freely repartition as you please. With that said, I'd HIGHLY recommend you look into virtualizing other OSes using VMWare Fusion, Parallels Desktop or VirtualBox. It will make your life a lot less stressful.

3. Non-apple hardware compatibility (printers, drives, HDD's, etc)

Again, modern Macs use commodity x86 hardware platforms. You're only limited by the drivers available to the peripheral of your choice. Most printers, external hard drives, etc, either don't need a driver or will ship with a Mac driver.

4. I mostly intend to be a work computer, but, you know, a guy has his needs, so games: even if (and specially) using Windows for most games, what is your experience with it as a game machine?

Well, personally, I believe notebooks (in general) suck for gaming. I maintain a desktop machine for those purposes. But given appropriate hardware, the Mac will run Windows games at the same speed and quality of an equivalent Wintel box. Again, modern Macs use commodity x86 hardware. There is no special magic to the Apple logo... it just means that you can run OS X on it legally.

5. MacOS software development: anything I should know before getting into that?

Just that Apple includes XCode with the OS, so you have everything you need to start developing in Objective C right out of the box. Additionally, Apple has a great ecosystem setup for developers in the Mac App Store. It makes it as easy to distribute your products for the Mac as it does for the the iOS App Store.
 

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