OS X is a triple OS OS X, Unix, and Windows (via VM Ware Fusion or Parallels, or if you which directly booting into Windows)
@original poster, you might regret the step to Mac - noticing what you have missed all the time on the other platform :-) I don't think Windows has a Beachball, that's a nifty feature of OS X - you've been missing that one for sure. Jürgen P.S. I'm running Fusion as there is one piece of software only for Windows, not even for Linux called Scrubber On Aug 9, 2012, at 10:58 AM, Nat Echols wrote: On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 6:55 AM, Jacob Keller <j-kell...@fsm.northwestern.edu<mailto:j-kell...@fsm.northwestern.edu>> wrote: one. Are there any really reasonable arguments for preferring Mac over windows (or linux) with regard to crystallography? What can Mac/Linux do that windows cannot (especially considering that there is Cygwin)? What wonderful features am I missing? Mac vs. Linux: mostly a matter of personal preference, but I agree with Graeme. Most programs run equally well on either - with Coot a partial exception, apparently due to problems with the X11 implementation (but once you get used to these, it's not a big deal). Windows, on the other hand, simply doesn't support the full range of modern crystallography software. And in my experience, it has crippling flaws that mean some programs will always work better on Mac/Linux. I wouldn't ever endorse trying to use Windows for serious scientific computing unless you need to run an application that won't work on any other OS, and as far as I know there isn't a single (macromolecular) crystallography program that falls into this category. -Nat ...................... Jürgen Bosch Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute 615 North Wolfe Street, W8708 Baltimore, MD 21205 Office: +1-410-614-4742 Lab: +1-410-614-4894 Fax: +1-410-955-2926 http://lupo.jhsph.edu
