> Well, my trusty Dell laptop HD has probebly died giving me an opportunity > to upgrade to the next best thing. Â The next best thing must still be a > laptop, runs Apache, MySQL and PHP, GIMP and screams, for minimum bucks, > for all round office use and web development. Is it a MacOSX, Windows > XP/Vista or Linux? Â Any thoughts to put in my note to Santa would be > greatly appreciated.
"Minimum bucks" might indicate leaning towards the bargain PC or PC laptop. However, at $999 the closeout white Macbooks are (IMHO) quite nice machines. With $80 for VMWare Fusion you can run multiple OS's (Windows, Linux x64, etc.). Alternatively with rEFIt you could have multiple OS's natively (Solaris even) through a boot menu. Having used a white Macbook that runs OS X and Windows XP SP2, Ubuntu 7.x (32-bit), Ubuntu x64 (v. 8.04) since February 2008 I prefer the Macbook to any of the laptops I've used recently (Dell D820, Thinkpad, etc.). There is also the VirtualBox option for a hypervisor and multiple OS's. I agree that the desktops offer better price/performance ratio....a comparable iMac or desktop PC presents better specs for less $$$. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm about to build the second desktop around a Tyan S2925A2NRF low-end server mainboard, the first of which has been in service at a business for year, and functioned flawlessly as a Linux desktop before being re-purposed, now (in someone else's hands) a Windows desktop. You could build a pretty nice desktop machine quite affordably starting with something like this; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128359 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231149 -Nick ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
