> opinion on the virtues of different OS environments for two days
It might be of interest to look back on the original poster's question, because all she asked were a few questions about a specific computer (HP Z210 8 GB with a low end Quadro Nvidia 400 512 MB) running "any Linux", and a specific computer (IMAC 4 GB 2.5 GHz with AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB) running OS X 10.7. Although she asked if the latter was "platform advisable for crystallographic software" for the coming years, there wasn't any question about the merits of various operating systems. Presumably, she can determine that as well as anyone else, assuming accurate answers to her questions. No one ever suggested operating system monogamy was a virtue. Besides, both are simply unix variants, and are far more alike than evangelists for either Linux or OS X seem to want to admit. If you like or dislike the iCandy apps, then there might be a compelling reason for/against OS X vs. Linux. Likewise, if you refuse to use closed-source, proprietary operating systems and software on principle, as advocated by Richard Stallmann, there is a compelling reason to use strict GNU/Linux (albeit without the NVidia proprietary driver). But then, you probably wouldn't be using much apart from COOT and other GPL software. OS X users, in that respect, are kind of like vegetarians who eat fish. --Bill William G. Scott Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and The Center for the Molecular Biology of RNA 228 Sinsheimer Laboratories University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California 95064 USA
