Switching from Linux to OSX

Hi guys. I am planing on switching to Mac OSX in october when Leopard comes out.
The reason why, is simple. First of all, I just LOVE linux, it is an awesome OS, and for my needs WAY better than MS Windows. I'd still recommend it to everyone! BUT:
There are just some things that wont work the way I want them to.
- I can't get my mic to work so I can't skype
- I can not sync my cell phone with the adress book.
- There is no good video editing software for linux.

That are the main reasons why I wanted to switch to OSX.
Now I know that everyone here will say "yes do it!" I mean, what else? I am posting in mac-forums.com but still there are some things that keep me thinking if I really should do it.
I hope anyone knows what I am talking about if I say that I am using compiz fusion rightnow. And to be honest, it's just freaking great!
I want to be totally honest: I think some of the Eyecandy and usability that comes with it, I will just miss

So my question is, if there is a way like in compiz fusion, to set a window's transperancy by just pressing alt and moving the mouse wheel up and down??

I know this is just a tiny feature, but I've come to appreciate it a lot. It brings so much more productivity to computing. For instance, what I do often is, I watch a movie and then someone chats with me in Pidgin (Adium for Mac useres )
So I maximize the chat window over the movie player's window and make the window transperent, that way I can chat and watch the movie the same time, and I can look at both things and follow the movie and the chat the same time.

My question was, if that was possible in Mac OSX as well?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another question I have is about the Intel GMA950 graphics processor of the Macbook. Rightnow I have an ATI X700 Mobile graphics card in my laptop.
I was searching for some benchmarks on the internet that compared the two processors in speed and performance, but I did not find any
I was just curious if compiz fusion would work just as flawless on the macbook I was going to buy, like it does on my laptop rightnow.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What about the 13" screen? What are your experiences. Switching from a 15" laptop to a 13" macbook, wouldn't that be too tiny??
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So far my questions, I hope someone here can help me out and give some profound answers.
If I'll have some more questions I will post them in here again
So far, thanks in advance!
Greetings
Flo

Well I dont think there is a way to mac OSX windows transparent without downloading anything.... there is an application called SetAlphaValue.... The Link Is Hear http://www.mparrot.net/index.php?page=downloads&lang=en and the 15'' to 13'' inch change is easy..
i went from 17 to 13 and am loving the loss in weight and bulk... hoped i helped

Transparency is (un)usually an option within the specific app; for instance I've set my Adium contact list to transparent so I just see a list of names that doesn't really obscure my desktop, and my Terminal windows are semi-transparent, just because I think it looks better. Adium also supports a lot of different themes for the chat window... one of them has got to support transparency.

The "zoom" effect in the video is built into the OS (hold ctrl while using the scroll wheell/2 finger scrolling trackpad), and the "Scale" effect is just Exposé. The cube thing and desktop switching aren't quite there (switching users gives a "cube" like transition), but who knows how Spaces will work in the end? Apple might build in similar things for switching between Spaces. At the moment there is VirtueDesktops (sp?) which supports different transitions (I think), but development has stopped with Spaces coming soon.

I'm certainly not aware of a system wide modification like that though.

As for the Intel graphics chip in the MacBook; I imagine it will do just fine, but I couldn't say for sure.

Going from 15" to 13"... I couldn't do it. Especially for video editing. I have a 15" MBP and I plan on getting a 20"+ display asap. People who have the MacBook seem to get along with it fine though; I suggest you have a play with one at a store.

Plenty of people have put Linux on their Mac without problem, so you could always have the best of both.

SetAlphaValue allows you to set the transparancy of the apps from it

good luck getting the setalphavalue to work.... it should not be to hard but i dont have the patience to do it

Thanks guys, for the useful help you gave me
It's just nice to have another friendly forum like ubuntuforums.org where you get what you ask for in a nice, friendly way.

I have to be honest, I am kinda scared of the fact that I always need an app for any single, little change I want to do to Mac OS! - Is that just not like on windows, that it'll need a lot of ram. Let's say (just a thought) I want to change the Theme, transperency, icons, special systemsettings... then I would need like 4 different programs that always need to run in the background and "waste" Ram!
Unlinke in Linux, were you can just natively change everything you want, like transperency, icons, sys settings, even the theme.
Give me some help on that please. Or can I even use different "themes" in OSX by default?
Or will it bit a Ram-eater like in windows, just because of the fact that the system is NOT open source. So I would have to "override" everything.
(like Styles XP just oveerrides the styles in Win XP and not natively just imports new themes)

I hope I expressed my self in a clear way I am an Austrian and it's 04:51 in the morning over here
Thanks in advance.

Flo

Ps: I found something here: http://millenomi.altervista.org/Afloat/
What do you think?

You might want to take a look at this thread:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50448&highlight=linux+switcher+guide

Mac57 wrote a very good "Linux Switcher's guide"

Okay, there are a few things I can address regarding your questions (along with you reading that Mac57's switching from Linux to Mac OS X) that might help you along with your decision.

I switched from Linux to Mac OS X in 2005 with a PPC Mac Mini for my personal computer requirements. I still use Linux and Windows at work for those purposes, and now use a Macbook for my own needs, so here goes.

First of all, you probably know this, but I'll mention it anyway Mac OS X is a UNIX based OS with a very slick and easy to use GUI. You still have the bash shell available, and anything you might have bash script wise will pretty much work like what you might have on Linux. I wrote a bunch of useful bash scripts that I used on my linux box that ported right over to OSX with very little effort. Especially once I download the Darwinports package to allow me to get the little helper applications that my scripts use. Along with that comes the stability and elegance that a UNIX like OS will give you.

The 13" screen is fine. With my Linux box I used a 20" CRT with resolution cranked up to 1600x1200 and expected to be using the same external screen with my Macbook, but my experience is that the 13" screen is perfect at 1280x800 when I'm out and about, while I now have a 22" widescreen LCD to use as a spanned external display at 1680x1050 and that's just even better. When I don't have the external display available I have no problems using the built-in LCD, however.

Coming from the Linux world I used the multiple virtual desktops extensively there, and have found that VirtueDesktops provides pretty much the same type of functionality even if it works kind of differently, but very nicely still. People are quite impressed by the way I switch between desktops each having whatever application group I've decided to use for each. This will just get better with Leopard and Spaces. Typically if I'm watching a movie it'll be displaying in one of my virtual desktops with my iChat in another one. I'll pause the movie and switch to that desktop if someone wants to talk to me. It's all very smooth and functional.

Most hardware that you'll have difficulty getting to work with your Linux machine will probably work just fine with a Mac. This without editing .conf files and such.

As for Cell compatibility, there is a program called Bitpim which is free and available for Mac OS X that has made it so I can use my Macbook to get in and load up things on my cellphone which, while artificially made to be not all that 'hackable' allows me to transfer ringtones and my address book from Address Book on the Mac so that my contacts that I want on my phone were fairly easily transferrable from my Mac to the phone. It's also available for Linux, but I don't know how well that would have worked since I don't use a Linux machine to talk to my phone. I do know that with that I've been able to do things with my Mac and cellphone that Verizon would rather I not be able to do (like use my own .mp3 files as ringtones rather than buying theirs for $3.99 each and having them expire after a time) otherwise.

As for theme customability I've found that the one that comes with Mac OS X is pretty good, and doesn't need to be customized. Why bother when it's already pretty to look at? If you do buy a Mac you'll probably agree. Also there are some nice tricks that come with the Mac OS that are brilliant; Exposé being one of them. Oh, sure, I've gotten some things like ClearDock which makes my Dock look prettier, but other than that the way the Mac GUI looks suits my purposes very nicely. As for the compiz fusion I played with that a little bit on my Ubuntu machine at work and found it rather buggy. With the stuff that is built into the Mac OS like Exposé and Virtue Desktops it pretty much...hate to say it, but uh, just works.

Also this machine is very fast, very portable, and has a lot of built-in features such as the wireless, bluetooth, the iSight camera, and this spiffy remote. Not having to really tinker around with my computer and X11 stuff is a plus as well, though if you want there is X11 available that comes with the Mac should you need that for some reason. I haven't really needed it, and other than installing it so that I have it plus Xcode so I can compile the odd Darwin port of some open source thing I haven't really used it.

Sure, there's a learning curve and sometimes a slightly different way of doing things on a Mac, but I can say that after a bit over two years of using my Mac since using Linux since, oh, let's see now, around 1996 and many other UNIXes since 1985 I have no intention of going back to either Linux or Windows for my own personal needs. Apple (and more accurately NeXT) got it right and keeps getting it right.

Of course need I mention that if you want you can also run Windows or Linux of most flavors either virtualized via Parallels Desktop, VMWare, or dual-boot into BootCamp? Probably not. I mostly use my Parallels Desktop VM to show people I can do it, and the occasional time when I'm out and about and need to run my corporate applications and don't want to lug my Dell around. That's just a minor thing really. If you put your mind to it, you'll find that just doing things "the Mac way", it'll be every bit as good and productive as you have found Linux allowed you to use. It's all about the options. Hey, there was a time when I thought that Apple arrogantly priced their hardware for what they offered. This is no longer the case. Their hardware is quite competitively priced, their OS is quite elegant, and would fit quite well into that which you might have found using Linux for all this time.

Hi Flavian, Welcome to Mac Forums!

A few comments. First of all, as you will see from my Linux to Mac Switchers Guide (thanks for the "plug" cwa107!) I strongly recommend YouControl Desktops for Linux users. This provides the same sort of multiple desktop functionality that is just a given in Linux. It also provides the same desktop cube spinning effects of Compiz/Beryl. I am not sure about Compiz-Fusion. Right now I have Arch Linux loaded on another system and use Beryl, which I understand is a branch of Compiz. Frankly, I like YouControl Desktops better. The transitions are smoother and better looking. No wobbly windows/wobbly menus, but very nice nonetheless. Wobbly menus are a bit much anyway - eye candy for its own sake, and distracting IMHO. Sorry, no transparency control that I am aware of.

As to your issue with mics not working in Linux, this could be your hardware, or it might be your distro. I have two different mics working well in Arch - one a USB mic on my Logitech webcam and the other a normal soundcard based external mic. I use Ekiga/GnomeMeeting to video call with other family members running either Linux themselves or MS Netmeeting.

No matter what, Mac's rock! I find I tend to "play" on Linux these days, but I "live and breathe" on my Mac. You won't regret the transition.

remember you can always run Ubuntu in a program such as parallels. this is what i will be doing

Flavian said:

BUT:
There are just some things that wont work the way I want them to.
- I can't get my mic to work so I can't skype
- I can not sync my cell phone with the adress book.
...That are the main reasons why I wanted to switch to OSX.

Click to expand...

Flavian said:

...
I have to be honest, I am kinda scared of the fact that I always need an app for any single, little change I want to do to Mac OS!...Unlinke in Linux, were you can just natively change everything you want, like transperency, icons, sys settings, even the theme.

Click to expand...

These are two sides of the same coin. The power of Linux is that nothing is set in stone...everything can be tweaked, configured, and adjusted to work however you want them to. The downfall of Linux is that everything must often be tweaked, configured, and adjusted in order to work at all.

There is an option to make your windows transparent, but it would look like the thing MS did with Vista.... that about it.

Anyways, I really admire people who claim that they have been using Linux. Its kinda hard to master, but once you do, there is a sense of achievement and satisfaction.
It at all you just need to change because of certain bug issues.... you should post on Linux forums. Pretty sure that you'll find all the issues can be solved considering that Linux is open-sourced.

However... I do recommend Mac OS X to anyone looking for a good comfortable platform. So much more stable than the all available Windows, looks better and is alot easier to use than Linux. Its just very hard to go wrong on a Mac.

Now I'm not OS Bashing. I'm not saying that Linux is bad, Windows is bad.... No.. I still maintain that Windows 2000 was the best version of Windows MS ever made.... Linux with its open-source platform has brought us Redhat, Mandriva, Suse and Ubuntu.... All great..

But all I'm saying is mac offers a good alround platform.
For instance... it is more reliable than a Windows machine... my PC always let me down.. .whereas my Mac (although 2 years older) never.
Getting software.... its easy with a windows machine, and on Linux you have to keep checking if the file ur downloading is the correct one for your version... On the mac its not as easy to find , but once you do, you can blindly install it and it works...


You are most welcome to give mac OS a shot... its guaranteed to impress starting from the first few seconds of use...

Thanks for all the posts. I really appreciate the forums here.
I haven't been on for a while and did not respond to the topic, I apologize for that.

I am most defenitely certain that I will try out Mac OSX Leopard. I've heard so many good things about it and am really excited about it.
I also see my time spent on my linux machine not as a wasted time, cause I can use the knowledge I've gained there to get a deeper understanding of what's going on in my mac especially the terminal commands
Also I will recommend Linux to everyone else that seeks out for a good, cheap and better to use alternative to windows.
I've recently set up ubuntu on my brother's pc and he loves it

I am so excited about leopard and can't stand apple's mentality of not releasing ANY new info for months now! - I want to know WHEN in october, Leopard comes out finally. that's a little frustrating.

Also one question is left about iTunes. To be honest I never liked it that much on windows, cause it was too big for me, I used to use winamp in the tiniest mode just on top of the screen, and that was great, so iTunes was kinda too big for me. But I think I'll do it and make the switch, but anyways, do you guys know anything about the DRM issue?
It's freaking annoying to have to burn your recently bought iTunes to a CD and then ripp them again, just to get Mp3s that you can use wherever you want.
Will that end in the near future? Cause, in my oppinion it is pretty useless if you can burn and ripp the files anyways!

And one question still: Is there a way to get the "title" bar (by that I mean the bar named "title" amongst the other ones like "Album, Artist, Date...") to get that one behind the Artist bar??
I think I did not express myself very well ^^ sorry...
By that I mean, I don'T want it to look like that:
"title" - "Artist"
I want it to look like
"Artist" - "title"
I've found that you can drag whatever bar you want, wherever you want, but you can NOT drag the "title" bar wherever you want it to be!
That's kinda annoying. Cause iTunes is the only program I know that has it that way around.

Thanks for any help
Kindly
Flo

Hi Flavian, I agree that iTunes is a "big" interface. Personally, I am a "dinosaur" in the Linux world - I love xmms, because it is so small and compact. I have others loaded, but xmms is what I come back to over and over.

You can overcome the iTunes "bigness" issue though by starting iTunes and minimizing it and then using any of the 100's of iTunes widgets that are available and present a very small, very compact interface that isn't even on screen unless you want it! Now that is small! ...and that is what I do.

Thanks dude!
It is great to have people like you on here, that know exactly how you feel about certain, even little things in everyday-computer-life
I feel the exact same thing about XMMS as you do. Even though I started to use banshee, just to get used to an iTunes like program.
Then I found that banshee supports keycombos (is that the right word?)
If i have the program minimized I will just press "end" to pause and play and page up and down to go back and forward in my tracks.
is that possible with OSX?

Another question:
Is there another way, like a tiny-tiny mode of iTunes or like winamp has a plugin to show the control buttons in the startbar of winblows?
So that I can see the title and track on screen and can navigate through the songs without having that big window open?

Thanks
Flo