Apple or Ubuntu

[Kent Borg]

My wife loves the Macbook Pro I bought her last year.  The slight
problem Apple can't fix doesn't seem to diminish her fondness for the
thing (the machine won't stay asleep, take it out of its bag and
discover it is cooking itself to death).  I admit, it *is* a nice machine.

I used to be a Mac-only bigot (olden, olden days: 68K, early PPC), but I
am typing this on my Ubuntu notebook.  Free software is nice, not being
at the mercy Steve's whims is very reassuring.

My Panasonic W4 weighs well under half what hers weighs.  Yes, Apple
makes notebooks that are lighter than the 17-inch models, but they all
weigh far more than my current non-Mac notebook.  By running Ubuntu I
have more hardware to choose from.  (My Panasonic W4 also knows how to
stay asleep.)

On the downside, I chose an expensive notebook that cost about the same
as hers, though I also run Ubuntu on my basement server, and it costs
far less.  Speaking of my basement server, it doesn't need to be
rebooted every time there is a software update, her Macintosh seems to
demand a reboot with every update of nearly anything. 

There are good and bad on both sides.  If Apple ever comes up with a
ultralight notebook, I might not be able to resist, but I expect I would
run native Ubuntu (and Mac OS) on it.


-kb