Posted by
ctrueden on
URL: http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/Advices-on-computer-hardware-tp3701254p3701259.html
Hi,
On 10/20/06, Mark J. Chopping <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> > The Macs are pretty, but if you intend to write your own code, they're
> > very hell to program on.... You'll get a really pretty computer for the
> > price from Apple, but you'll get every bit as much computer for half the
> > price from one of the PC vendors. Also, OS X doesn't manage memory
> > well, so you will have to restart from time to time to clear it out if
> > you're going through large datasets.
>
> Anyone care to comment on this assessment of Mac/OSX? I wonder whether
> the machines were comparable -- or is this the older Mac vs. new PC
> chestnut (viz. "I do most of my image processing on an old Powerbook...")?
> Is OSX' memory management really worse than other Unix implementations?
Well, since you asked... =)
First of all, I strongly dispute that Macs are "very hell to program
on." Since the release of Mac OS X (with its FreeBSD core), I have
personally witnessed a large number of developers switch to Mac,
especially in the laptop market (the MacBook Pros are awesome). I'm
curious why someone would think programming on a Mac is much more
onerous than Linux (since Mac OS X comes with nearly all the standard
*nix tools), or even Windows (which doesn't come with said tools).
As for memory management, as far as I know it is reasonable on OS X. I
have seen some criticism
(
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/macosx10_3_8/topic2784.html)
but supposedly it's mostly people failing to understand how "inactive
memory" works (
http://www.applelinks.com/articles/2003/03/20030303131234.shtml).
Regarding price, I'm not sure. The Mac Mini is pretty cheap.
As for Macs being slower than PCs, I'm not convinced (even in the G5
era:
http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html). Some Google searches
should easily uncover more price/performance comparisons. Since Macs
use Intel chips now, it seems largely moot. I know my new dual-core
MacPro is obscenely fast, and ImageJ is blazing. I am using Parallels
with both WinXP and Ubuntu running on it, and ImageJ seems just as
fast or faster in OS X than on Windows or Linux (hard to say how much
of that is virtualization slowdown, but supposedly the hardware
virtualization support results in only a 2% performance hit).
Frederick Ross is right about Java2D being slower on the Mac
currently, but that will supposedly change with the next OS X release
with Java 1.6.
To the original poster: which machine you get depends on your needs.
As a Java developer, I really value having a MacPro with the ability
to test on all three major desktop OSes. But for image visualization
and processing, you surely don't need all three. Take a good look at
which software you need to run. If you have OS-specific visualization
software, you should probably use that OS. If you have software for
multiple OSes, you could consider the Parallels approach, or use
Bootcamp with an OS X box -- Bootcamp has the advantage of hardware
accelerated graphics on Windows or Linux, which could be crucial for
you depending on the software you use. Or if you don't need OS X, you
could just get a PC and dual-boot Windows and Linux -- I would say
whether to get a Mac depends on whether you need/want OS X vs Windows
and/or Linux.
-Curtis