2011/9/29 Simon Kolstoe <s.kols...@ucl.ac.uk>: > Generally I think that the extra money spent on a Mac pays for less time > spent messing around > installing software, sorting out dependencies, swearing at the less than > effective office software etc. > that plagues Linux which is more of a "computer experts" platform.
For some years I had dual-boot systems, but since the only thing in Windows that I can't live without is their Office suite, what I've been doing for a year or two is having an easy to maintain linux distribution in my desktop (I use Kubuntu since Dapper Drake, and by that time it seemed to be the only distro which was anything near "easy to use", but there are probably other good options today) while running Microsoft Office via Crossover Office, a very cheap little program for running windows software on linux (they also have a version for Mac). It works just perfectly, and it means I only need an Office license (no need to install Windows, as some do in virtual machines). Also, back in 2003 setting up the video card was a nightmare even in more user-friendly linux distributions. It seems not to be the case nowadays, it's been a long time since I had that feeling for destroying the computer with a sledgehammer after trying the nth version of xorg.conf and still being unable to run coot. Lucas