PC x Mac

[Karoliina Salminen]

Hi,

Well, there was the discussion about laptops... "I use this and I swear on it".
Well, I have a gadget freak's solution: have them all. As a result, I
don't swear on any particular machine and the only ones of them I
really love of them are all Apple hardware. I don't really look for
the processing power only, but the complete product - I have plenty of
processing power available at hand. For example, the iMac which I use
for the most heavy music production, is only 2.6 GHz Core2 Duo, and so
far the CPU hasn't run out in my music even if I am running dozens of
software synthesizers and audio tracks at the same time with the Space
Designer per part (the convolution reverb, I remember the time when I
had a Pentium3 - 400 MHz, and all the CPU got used for calculating
just one convolution reverb and there was a huge latency on it, now I
can have about as many of convolution reverbs at one time than I ever
want, and the CPU is not yet even fully utilized). What it comes to
loving one machine, one feature of a old PC is that it has absolutely
no lasting feel to it, after 10 years, the PC is just junk and trash.
The Apple machine is beautiful, and feels retro cool after 10 years. I
don't love any of the PCs I have. They are just boring tools where GPU
model and CPU model counts and when they get old, they have no value
of any kind (neither emotional nor practical).

I am regularly using the following laptops:
- Apple Macbook (2.2 GHz, 4GB RAM, 250 GB HD) (MacOSX + Ubuntu) [Hardy]
- Apple Macbook (2.0 GHz, 4GB RAM, 250 GB HD) (MacOSX)
- Apple Macbook Pro (4GB RAM, 250 GB HD) (MacOSX + Ubuntu) [Hardy]
- Lenovo Thinkpad T61p (4GB RAM, 160 GB HD) (Ubuntu) [Intrepid] [for
software development]
- Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (uh oh, the ugly and evil OS, this is for some
work bureaucracy)
- Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (Ubuntu) [Hardy] [for software development]
- Dell Latitude D600 x 2 (no longer in active use) (Ubuntu) [Hardy]
[for software development]
- Some IBM T40s.
- One T40 or something like that monitors our home automation (we have
computer controlled lights for example, lights can be switched on and
off from Linux console (we are slowly making progress with the
graphical user interface))
+ dozen of old laptops which no longer are very usable (these have
either Ubuntu or Suse in them)

At home we have desktops as follows (that are in use):
- Intel Core2 Quad, 4GB, 2.4 GHz, 1 TB, Geforce 8800 GTX 768MB,
St-audio DSP2000 x 2. 30" 2560x1600 Dell monitor. Running Ubuntu
Studio. [Hardy] [living room general purpose machine, with music
production capabilities]
- Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB, 2 GHz, ~2 TB, GeForce 8600 GT. Planned to be
replaced with Intel Core7. Connected to 1920x1200 monitor and HD video
projector (which is in the home theater room). Running regular Ubuntu.
[Hardy] [Home-theater PC and file server]
- AMD Athlon 64, 2.2 GHz, 4 GB, 500 GB, server, running in text mode,
Running Ubuntu server. [Hardy]
- Apple iMac 20" 2.6 GHz, with second 24" monitor attached with
resolution 1920x1200. The iMac has 500 GB internal drive. Running
MacOSX and music software (Logic Studio/Logic Pro 8) [music
production, video editing/production, audio editing, 3D CAD]
- VIA Epia diskless PC running Linux-CNC (Ubuntu) [Hardy]

No longer in use:
- previous server (reason: broken)
- previous file server (reason: broken)

Then of course, we have a pile of broken hard disks, etc. And we are
frequently giving out old hardware for free to a friend of ours who
removes and reuses the components (I mean, the resistors, capacitors
etc., not the full computer components which are usually broken at
that time) from them.

Handheld computers (only computers count, I do not count my phone or
iPod to them):
- Nokia 770 x couple [Maemo Debian]
- Nokia N800 x couple [Maemo Debian]
- Nokia N810 x 2 [Maemo Debian]

-- Karoliina