Mac Question
 

I realize this thread will go to hell in no time so I'm hoping to get a couple good answers first :)

I've been told Windows can be loaded onto a Mac and run exactly as a PC. Is this really true?

Can I buy a Macbook Air, load Windows 7 on it and have an experience no different than I would with a PC? I can then load PC programs and download plugins and other nic-nacs meant for a PC without issue? It will appear in function to be a PC?

I can't imagine it actually works that way but thought I would ask.

***yea yea I know..."why would you do that? OS IXVCCMIII Spotted Warthog is a vastly superior OS"**** :)

all I can say is that most any pgm should run under bootcamp but not all

I have a datalogger pgm that will run on Win95 but not on ME or anything newer.

oh yeh - you have 14 days to figure it out once you get the machine

I tried a 13.3" Air book but sent it back

Interesting, so it is a workaround...not a true Windows clone type situation? That's where it loses me, oddball Windows programs like those used to program PLCs and other oddball industry stuff probably won't work but the more mainstream stuff probably will...???...

Parallels Desktop - 6 will run Windows 7 perhaps better than your PC - however, you have to buy both Parallels and Windows 7... And 7 is a hog...

But, you should notice no difference - and you can still run MacOS (I assume Lion, but it should work with any 10 based OS) at the same time - even games - like Call of Duty run pretty good - sort of depends on the video card you are running...

Ohhhhhhhh - you have WartHog... I am impressed, I was told WartHog wasn't even out in beta form yet... wanna share ;)

Ok, that would be cool. So I could boot the Mac in Windows seven and if I never looked I would never know I was on a MAC?

Oh and Spotted Warthog is pre-beta, ya gotta know someone. I could probably get you a bootleg copy of Domestic Calico though.

I run Lion and Win7 on my Macbook Air. I haven't had any issues loading and running my windows programs on Win7. Macs are all x86 now anyway so it is basically the same as a PC under the skins.

That's what I was told...hmmmmm

you know - this is a lot of effort just to run COBOL...

All Bootcamp does is assist in installing an OS other than OS X. It has no impact of effect on what software will run under the alternate OS. Lion version of Bootcamp only supports Windows 7. Snow Lepoard will support previous versions of Windows. Bootcamp can also be used to install Linux.

So to answer Lens question, if you install Windows on a Mac via Bootcamp and boot into Windows there is nothing different about the experience other than you are running it on Apple hardware v Dell, Acer, Toshiba, etc.....

While not the same as booting into an alternate OS VM's, (virtual machines) like Parallels work very well.

I used Parallels early on but have since found VMWare Fusion to be a better product.

If you want to play around with VM's bto get an idea of what can be done then get Virtual Box from SUN, it's free, has a decent amount of features, not as robust as Parallels or Fusion but it's free so whatever.

A few years ago, the fastest PC you could buy running Windows was a..... Macbook Pro. True story.

Yea, I believe that. I am starting to get swayed by the lure of build quality though, don't really care about speed. All the newer machines mac/pc are plenty fast, I'm just tired of stuff failing. I've always admitted that Macs are better built but I hate the interface(my wife if a Mac nut and trying to operate those things drives me batty). So, if I could have Mac build quality and run windows on it in such a way that it acts EXACTLY like a PC during operation...well that would be tempting.

A number of our developers and project leaders use Mac hardware and dual boot so they can run the win-only game engines. My son runs XP on my old MacBookPro on a daily basis. Beats the crap out of it...

Yes, dual booting will run the OS ... for a while when Vista came out (or maybe Win 7) a Mac was the fastest performing machine with it per the benchmarks used...

That said, I'd recommend using OS X for as much as possible (web, email, etc) and run Windows in a virtual machine using VirtualBox (its Free and free) for the one or two critical apps that you require windows for.

Why? Just because you like Mac stuff better or because there will be hiccups with the windows side?

I think that is Warty Warthog and Oneiric Ocelot. Warty is a way old proof of concept and I don't like the UI change in OO, as well as some changes canocial has made in the past few releases. I'll stick with Lucid Lynx until it isn't supported (its a LTS release) and then back to pure Debian. :D

There should be no hiccups on the windows side.

other than windows itself...

:D

Well that goes without saying but I guess it was worth saying.;)

That's something I've never heard before. Do Dell, Acer, etx machines really fail so soon?
Have you considered that regardless of the hardware you get now it will probably be obsolete, out of business, and perhaps not supported any more?