[Wolves] Mac or PC Laptop?

[Andy Wootton]

david at codepoets.co.uk wrote:

>>>
>>> Small
>>> Powerful
>>> Built in WiFi
>>> At least CD writer, perferably DVD writer (must be built in, no 
>>> external devices)
>>> Long battery life (>3 hours)
>>> Reliable
>>> Tough
>>>
>>> The budget will depend on what the spec somes up as, but the Mac is 
>>> 1300 quid
>>> (not Pesos, rupees, or buttons :)
>>
>
> iBooks are only 750 quid ( i thinik )... unfortunately as Aq pointed 
> out, the
> airpoot express isn't supported under Linux yet ... as we've found 
> out. While
> we were buying ours (a couple of months ago) Apple updated them 
> (faster,cheaper
> etc) - at this point they changed the wireless card to one which isn't 
> supported
> by linux... the older version did work fine.
>
> For what it's worth, Ubuntu works perfectly out of the box on it - 
> apart from
> the wireless card.
>
> David.

That was the conclusion I came to when buying a portable recently too. 
Apple hardware currently offers amazing value but I couldn't understand 
why a Powerbook was worth 50% more than an iBook. I paid £800 - £50 
educational discount for a 1GHz G4. The price has dropped to £750 (inc. 
VAT) for 1.2 GHz. and they throw in a wireless card now. While you are 
waiting for wireless drivers to be developed, you'll find a surprising 
amount of Linux software has been ported to OS X via Fink and you've got 
Bash under the covers now. The battery life is staggering compared to 
Wintel. You can buy everyone an iPod (sorry, I mean external Firewire 
disk) with the money you save and still have change. They seem tough but 
the fact that they are white and beatiful seems to make people treat 
them with more respect anyway.

Woo