Getting a mac

Hi

I'm thinking alot of bying me a mac now, but I'll wait for the nanoBook to come.

But I just have some other quistions first, its about following:

* If I boot linux on it, and use a normal usb mouse, will the right mouse buttom then work normal or ? and will a normal mouse also work with the right mouse buttom on a mac generally ??
Because I would maybe belive I would miss the right mouse funktion from a normal mouse/linux/("win")

* How do I get new software programs for it and install them ??
* Are the terminal commands alike thoose ind Linux ??


Thanks for your help

Sorry the stupid quiestions.. but are totally new here, but I have talked so much which other mac users, and are tired of win braking down. And found out that mac also can run linux, so that would be the best chooice for me.

Welcome to the Forums!

First off, if you need a computer, don't wait. I've never even heard of the "nanoBook", nor have I heard of any rumors of anything called the nanoBook. I'd assume you're referring to the flash based 13" MacBook Pro *rumor*...

Anywho, if you do decide to get a Mac:

1. Depends on the drivers, I'd suppose. That's all Linux. There are a few Linux-heads on this forum and I'm sure they could answer your question more thoroughly. During my brief stint with Ubuntu installed on my Powerbook, the right click worked fine.

2. Macupdate and VersionTracker both carry Mac applications. Also, Apple's store website and CompUSA carry Mac software. Installs are done via disk images, most of the time. You'll download a disk image, mount it on the desktop, drag the application to your Applications folder, eject the disk, and delete the image. That's it.

3. I would assume it depends on the distro of Linux. A lot of commands are universal throughout most *nix's, like "cd", "ls", "pwd", etc.

You should think a lot about if a Mac is right for you, do a lot of research and figure out what you want. A lot of people get buyer's remorse when they get a Mac, it's nothing like Windows and you'll have to keep that in mind.

Good luck with your decision and again, welcome!

1/ If you boot linux, the functionality of your USB mouse will be strictly a function of the support on your Linux distro. All *should* work normally if your distro is configured properly.

2/ There are lots of places to get software for your Mac. Unlike Linux, you won't find a central distro repository, you need to find software from various sources, just like in Windows.

A good guide to some of the critical apps you will want to get right away can be found in my Linux to Mac Switchers Guide at:

http://www.campbell-tx.net/MacOSX/Linux2Mac/linux2mac.html

You will also find a great deal of Linux friendly switching info in this guide.

3/ Yes, there are terminal commands in Mac. In fact, Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD and provides a complete bash shell, available via Terminal.app. Further to that, the Mac comes with X11 (complete with xterm of course!) and has several source level unix/linux "distros" available for it.

The best of these, IMHO, is darwinports (see http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/). I use this one myself and run LOTS of my favorite linux apps *directly* under Mac OS X (no need to even boot to Linux - you can run the best of both on Mac OS X!). For example, I run Abiword, gnumeric, good ol xv, feh, xfe, gftp, etc. all installed via darwinports.

Thanks for your help here.

i have been doing alot of research and my chooice is always ending on a mac..

The nanoBook is comming here after summer. They are launching a new model..

Just one quiestion more, if i use a normal usb mouse on a mac, will that also work "normally" with a right mouse buttom like in linux and win..??

That sounds so super..

Thnk you wery much for your help

Yes, a two button mouse will work just fine as is on a Mac. I use an Apple Mighty Mouse with my Macbook, but used a Logitech three button mouse for quite a while with my old Mac Mini. If you get a Macbook or MB Pro, you can use 'two finger right click' with the built-in trackpad in which if you have two fingers on the trackpad and click the button, you get a context menu just as if you did a right-click.

Also my advise to you is to not bother with Linux on a Mac. Mac OS X is already as-is a fantastic UNIX, which is what Linux has been trying to be in the first place. Granted, it's a BSD variant, so you'll be doing ps -aux instead of ps -ef, but otherwise, all the GNU tools are there.

find . -name \* -exec grep -l -i 'foo' {} \;

Will work exactly the same on both an xterm on Linux, and Terminal.app on a Mac. As will:

tar tf - . | (cd ~/otherdir/otherfolder; tar xpfB -)

(assuming that otherdir/olderfolder exist on both machines.)

All my bash scripts work on my Mac that I wrote on Linux. Plus you get the slick GUI (though you can run X11 and Fink stuff if you're slightly masochistic), the built-in bluetooth, wireless, iSight camera, beautiful widescreen (if only 13.3" with a Macbook) display, iChat video conferencing (which I use all the time with my wife and brother-in-law with their Macbooks), a nice portable package that sleeps immediately when you close the lid, and wakes up instantly.

If you must bother with Linux on a Mac, run Parallels Workstation. Just last night I downloaded a complete Ubuntu virtual machine image that was all set up to run by one fine individual on the Parallels forums. I just copied in place, a double click later and I had a VM booting up Ubuntu Linux so I could play around with that distro. I could still switch desktops to do other stuff in Safari and the other Mac apps while this was running (oh, if you get VirtueDesktops, you can have multiple virtual desktops, like most Linux distros supply with a really cool switching mechanism; I miss the neat switch effect when I'm using my RedHat desktop at work) so it's the best of all worlds.

the nano book?
first ive heard of it
il believe it when i see it, whats going to be new?
flash memory, extra thin and bendy
de ja vu

Found this article just now..maybe he's talking about this?

By Philipp Gollner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc. may sell zippy notebook computers later this year that use the same type of fast memory as music players and digital cameras, driving down prices of hard-disk drives, an analyst said on Thursday.

The maker of the popular iPod music player and Macintosh computers hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as subnotebooks in the second half of 2007, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research who has a "buy" rating on Apple shares and does not own any stock, said in investor notes on Wednesday and Thursday.

A shift to flash memory in place of much slower hard-disk drives would eliminate one headache for consumers: lengthy start-up times when turning on computers.


Apple of Cupertino, California, already uses flash memory in its iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle music players. Flash memory is lighter, uses less power and takes up less space than hard-disk drives.

Wu, who was among the first analysts to forecast the unveiling of Apple's iPhone music player/phone earlier this year, cited unnamed industry sources as the basis for his report.

"The time is right for the flash makers to make a move" as flash memory prices decline, Wu said by telephone. "Apple, from what we understand, is pretty much ready. The ball is in the flash vendors' court."

mikeyman said:

the nano book?
first ive heard of it
il believe it when i see it, whats going to be new?
flash memory, extra thin and bendy
de ja vu

Click to expand...

Ohh year..

they are building in a new type of flash memory like the one intel is launching, but only better

Then it would be able to boot twice as fast, get more battery life and some other cool stuff..

I'm really looking forward to it comes on the market

I think the current MacBooks boot pretty quick anyway. Mine boots in like 20 seconds. Better battery life would be cool though.

Hey

I just have another question also..

I have been thinking about also installing the mac "controller2 system on my desktop, so I can make that to a mac also, because it would be so nice if I could install mac on it also, so I don't need to goe and buy a new Desktop computer..

Can this be done ??

The Turtle! said:

Found this article just now..maybe he's talking about this?

By Philipp Gollner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc. may sell zippy notebook computers later this year ..."

Click to expand...

This is just going off a rumor that Apple may be using flash drives instead of real hard disks because of another patent.

Nobody, and I scream NOBODY outside a few people at apple know what they will release when and where.

Don't let the truth get in the way of a good rumor ....

My wife's Dad always used to say that no good story was ever made better by sticking to the truth! :dive:

Y'all can't accept the truth... it's too painful for you!!! Muahaahah...


Well let's just hoped they won't name it nanoBook, that's just stupid from a business POV (keep the product line understandable and simple). Unless it really is a subnotebook, rather than a small MacBook Pro, I would hate that name.

The move to flash drives was evident ever since flash was conceived. We can get big flash drives for little money now and as someone stated in that 8-core mac thread, "cars will be more fuel-efficient" eventually anyway.

But I'm just advising kjgizmo not to rely his entire life plan relying on that rumor.

As for your wish to install "mac" on your desktop, you can't do it legally. If you want Mac OS X, you have to buy a Mac computer, used or new.

Sorry, but saying you want to install "mac" is like me saying I just downloaded "Linux".

I read a rumor where this new subcompact notebook with flash memory was referred to as the "macbook thin". Time will tell, I guess.

Yup, I have heard the same rumor. See this thread: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55738&page=3

There is so much industry noise about this that I am reminded of the old adage that where there is smoke there is fire...