[SWLUG] Open source on Mac

[Rhys Hardwick]

On 20 Dec 2006, at 00:07, James Edgeworth wrote:
> Speaking of a Macbook Pro - I'd like to hear people's recommendations
> regarding them. They seem to be very pricey, but the apple's "get a  
> mac"
> adverts have me curious, as well as seeing a few of them around Uni
> doing some funky GUI effects.

They are defintely very beautiful, yes!

> I know there's boot camp, for dual booting OS X with Windows, but  
> can it
> also dual-boot with Linux?
>
> Other than look lush, and run Ms Office (not really a good thing, but
> University requires MS Access :-( ), what does it have/what can it do,
> which Linux cant?
Actually, probably the best way of doing this is to use a program  
called Parallels, which is virtualisation software for a mac.  I have  
ubuntu running on virtualisation, and it is very quick indeed.   
Switch to full screen, and you'll forget you have mac running as well  
if you want to.  This option works very well, as it appears to the  
outside network (as it gives each virtualization a new ip address via  
a NAT setup) that it is a linux computer.  Works just as well for  
windows, which I'll probably have to do when I get my new pocketPC  
next week.

I have read accounts on the internet saying that installing windows  
and linux via boot camp is pretty easy.  Admittedly there are a few  
tweaks needed to get it working with elf (the mac book loading  
system), and to get all the functionality working, but it does work.   
Personally, parallels does all I need it to do.

They aren't cheap, but believe me, when you have one, you are glad  
you paid what you did.  Macs do 'just work'.
> James
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P.S. what's MS Office anyway - I use neooffice to open all my MS  
proprietary file formats!