As part of starting my new job I’ve had to decide what kind of workstation to order. I’m fortunate in that my manager has given me the choice between a generic PC and an Apple machine. There was a time when I used Linux exclusively for all of my desktop and development needs, but about 4 years ago I purchased my first Powerbook and I really haven’t touched anything other than Mac OS X on Apple hardware since.
Naturally my first instinct was simple: Get a Mac. I do all of my work on a MacBook Pro and I’ve grown to appreciate many things about Mac OS X. I fired up my browser and went over to the Apple Store Online to look at my options. What I’d forgotten was that the cost of even the lowest-spec Mac Pro is pretty prohibitive, so I’d have to choose between an iMac and a Mac Mini. Display size is pretty important to me, and the specs on a maxed-out Mini seem so piss-poor, so my best option was a 24″ iMac. I’ve never been a fan of the iMacs (for a variety of reasons) so the fact that this was my best and only option was a bit disappointing to me. Why the hell is it not possible to purchase a Mac Pro for less than $2500 sans-display?
Faced with these limitations from my vendor of choice, I started to consider a PC. After looking around a bit, the prospect of purchasing a PC and running Linux again started to become strangely compelling. Perhaps years of limiting my hardware choices has taken it’s toll on me after all. As one is want to do when faced with such a conundrum, I decided to do a little bit of soul searching and figure out exactly what it was (other than the price) that was attracting me to the option of a Lintel PC.
Now before anybody says anything, I’m perfectly aware that I could run Linux on Apple hardware, but I really don’t consider that an option. I acknowledge that Apple hardware is generally of good quality, but I really do think it’s overpriced. I’m fine paying a fee for a machine that runs OS X but I just can’t justify the cost in order to just run Linux on the thing. If I’m going to run Linux, it’s going to be on a Frankenstein-ish PC and that’s that.
After some thought I decided that the big thing drawing me towards the Lintel option was choice. I didn’t realize how much I missed piecing together a system, choosing a processor, shopping for a motherboard and all the fun things that Apple shields me from. I started to imagine my dream system, running Gentoo Linux (with XGL), maybe compiling a xen patched kernel and running a few virtual machines… it all made me feel… happy. The other unexpected realization I made was this: Running Linux on a PC I specced out and built myself makes me feel more… nerdy. For some reason, and I know that this is very unscientific, I just feel more encouraged to tinker on Linux… to try things out, to learn about new corners of the OS or a particular development environment or programming language or whatever the case may be…
Maybe it’s the unpolished nature (kind of like living in a fixer-upper house) that does it, but Linux just makes me want to hack more. Apple hardware and Mac OS X is very good at making me feel comfortable or at home in the way a warm bath does… or the smell of bread baking, but it just doesn’t inspire me to hack. At least… not anymore. So, we’ll see if I still feel this way after a couple of months of customizing my system, emerging portage ebuilds, configuring USE flags, etc. But for now, this is the way I’m going and I’m a little excited to get back into it.
Disclaimer: I’m not leaving OS X behind. I still have my MacBook Pro, I suspect I’ll still do a lot of my word processing in iWork and well, it’s hard to do anything with Cocoa on Linux… I’m just diversifying my desktop experience.
2 Comments
… but you can’t take the Mac away from Paul.
I’ll be interested to hear which distro you ultimately decide on if and when you do get an x86 box to muck about with. Keep hacking! Best, — p
I feel the same way about “hacking” on a Mac. It just doesn’t feel right, never did… Ever since I got my MacBook and started using it as a primary computer (12+ hrs a day at times…), I’ve been doing less and less of “hackish” development. Exploring my new environment beyond what I needed to know to get on with my day-to-day tasks didn’t seem very interesting. However, to be completely honest, my choice of a MacBook (as opposed to cheaper, more powerful laptop running some linux distro) was for the large part inspired by the fact that I wanted a machine that would “just work”. I suppose I shouldn’t complain then
I did find, however, that I’m spending more and more time ssh’ed into my linux box and tinkering with it every now and then