Ignatz Mouse said:
I've been on the Mac platform for about 6.5 years now, and still not particularly missing Windows. However, I have Ubuntu on a couple of devices (netbook, old tablet) and I pretty much like it. Linux as a desktop OS has come a long way. So as my current Macbook ages and I consider replacing it, I am considereing jumping to Linux as my main platform.
About the same here. I've been on Mac since about this time in '99. I ran Ubuntu starting with 8.10 for about a year, but never as a replacement, and it was off of what was once a pretty impressive gaming PC that's gigantic and now has a dead PSU.
I'm becoming very frustrated with Apple's increasing prices. At one point I had a G4/400 PowerMac and used the hell out of that thing. It was the entry level pro machine, and back then it was $1799. The entry level pro machine now is $2499...yeesh. iMac isn't really an option for me as I don't want to pay for a monitor when I already have one, and the Mac mini is the red headed step-child of the Mac family. Anyways...
I'm curious about other people's experience, particularly with:
Photo libraries/editors
Music management
Interfacing with iTunes libraries on other machines (is it even possible?)
Misc.
Can't really help you with photo apps, although I know there's no shortage of them. For music, I also prefer Banshee. It has an iTunes feel to it, along with a rating system and smart playlists, and built-in syncing for Android and access to the Amazon MP3 Store. I'm not sure how integrated it is with the OS since I haven't used Ubuntu in a bit over a year now. For syncing with other libraries back then, I stored the music on my NAS and gave both comps rights over NFS, which worked great. This time around I'll probably just store everything on the Ubuntu box, though. All it takes is one brain fart to wipe out files forever on a non-RAID1 NAS.
I have zero fear about the overall OS stuff-- I switched to Mac in the firstplace because of the Unix-like underlayer and how that made my life easier.
Your stories?
I think there's definitely a bit more involved in maintaining an Ubuntu box than a Mac. On the Mac, you hit software update and that's pretty much it. On Ubuntu, you might have to drop to the command line from time to time to update video drivers and whatnot. Nothing too terrible, but not the "it just works" experience of the Mac.
On the other hand, the box that I'm looking at building is quite a bit faster than the Mac mini. The CPU alone benches almost twice as fast, nevermind the dedicated vid card. And I'm talking $600 or so shipped with maybe an hour's worth of work putting it together.
I enjoy the feel of Ubuntu, as it is very Mac-like, and the speed/cost savings are hard to ignore. I'm anticipating the MBP announcements on Thursday to see what the 13" will look like, as that's probably what the mini will end up being. Short of an i3, I think my Mac experience for at least the next year will be relegated to iPad syncing duty.