On Thursday, September 29, 2011 12:55:43 pm George M. Sheldrick wrote:
> I do all my program development on Linux and never liked Windows. However
> I recently attended two small-molecule crystallographic workshops where
> the large majority of the participants used exclusively Windows, and the
> ones who didn't use Windows used mostly Macs. I think the decisive
> advantage of Windows for them is the ease of downloading and installing
> the software from the internet, especially on laptops. Indeed some small
> molecule programs such as Olex2 (a widely used graphical GUI) perform
> automatic web updates unless you go to some lengths to stop them (i.e.
> just like Microsoft). The large majority of SHELX and shelXle (Christian
> Huebschle's GUI for SHELXL refinement of small molecules) downloads are
> for Windows, and Mac downloads clearly outnumber Linux. I suspect that a
> silent majority of CCP4 users actually also run CCP4, and especially Coot,
> under Windows!
>
> George
Meaningless statistics:
Of the requests made against my web server
(Parvati, TLSMD, Anomalous Scattering, source tarballs),
the requesting machines since Jan 2011 are running
39% Windows
32% Linux
26% OSX
3% other
Although I do have static content on the site also (e.g. class material),
I think it's fair to estimate that most of the access is from
crystallographers. But who knows, really. The fact that "other" includes
access from Sony playstations and SymbianOS phones does make me wonder.
FWIW, Firefox is the most common browser (55%), and since earlier in 2011
Chrome (15%) has taken over second place from IE (14%). Safari is at 11%,
so I take it that more than half of the OSX users browse using something
else.
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 02:55:22PM -0400, Bosch, Juergen wrote:
> > How frequently do you change your linux boxes ?
> > I'm still running a Mac Laptop from 2004 which I bought for 2500$, only
> > thing I
> > had to do is replace the hard drive as the shipped 120 GB was way to small
> > for
> > my needs. It now sports a 500 GB drive and runs 10.6. So considering it's
> > been
> > running for 7.5 years now that brings the cost down to ~340$/year.
Yeah, but...
My current linux laptop was purchased new 2 years ago for $299.
It has roughly the same size and power as an 11" MacBook Air
(1.4GHz Core 2, 11" 1366x768 display, 6-8 hour battery life).
Yeah, I choose it for use while traveling rather than for heavy duty
computation, but hey, I could get a new one every year for the amortized
cost of your MacBook :-)
cheers,
Ethan
> > I'm
> > anticipating to use that Mac at least for another 3-4 years before I think
> > it
> > served my purposes well. Then in it's afterlife it will function as guest
> > computer for people visiting us from Europe :-)
> >
> > A Mac mini with Zalman serves as stereo workspace together $1000, has been
> > running three years now and it will surely continue to run for a few more
> > years. Sure I also have the MacPro's there the $-tag is much higher but you
> > also get a few more cores for your money and not everybody needs one of
> > those
> > monsters.
> >
> > J rgen
> >
> >
> > On Sep 29, 2011, at 10:55 AM, Dima Klenchin wrote:
> >
> >
> > Simon Kolstoe wrote:
> >
> >
> > Meanwhile I think windows is slowly improving as a crystallography
> >
> > platform - and Microsoft is perhaps no longer hated in principle -
> > however
> >
> > the one student in our lab who opted to go the windows route seems
> > very
> >
> > limited in the software he can run.
> >
> >
> > I have a feeling that the lack of Windows software continues to be
> > mostly
> > due to the irrational animosity toward it rather than the
> > platform-specific
> > issues. After all, there seemed to be many developers who were happy to
> > code for MacOS 7-9 but refused to release anything that runs in Windows.
> > Meanwhile, that is the only platform we never hear about installation
> > and
> > dependencies issues. Given the large number of Windows versions of CCP4
> > downloaded, I assume this is not because nobody actually installs
> > Windows
> > software.
> >
> > - Dima
> >
> >
> > ......................
> > J rgen 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://web.mac.com/bosch_lab/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
--
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center, K-428 Health Sciences Bldg
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742
