Member Avatar for Selwyn

HELLO PEOPLE
I bought a mac mini about 18 months ago and had a play about with it for 4 or 5 months & i got bored with it as the majority of my stuff i used was on my windoze pc.
But hey now mac have released the new osx leopard operating system which from what i can see is awesome in every way / or maybe you ppl know different.
I intend to give my mini a new lease of life with the new leopard os & run windows natively on it also.
I intend and so would love to bin the blue screen of death i mean windoze , & do my normal tasks on my mac.
I have been down the linux road already i liked ubuntu , but i dont fancy being a brain surgeon trying to figure out command line stuff & lack of drivers etc.
Has anybody had the same sort of experience with the macs , let me know what you found.
Cheers D

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Sharkheart

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Good plan, — Leopard genuinely refreshed the platform in ways that make the Mac a lot more usable for everyday work (Time Machine, Spaces, Quick Look and under‑the‑hood improvements), and Apple bundled Boot Camp so Intel Macs can run Windows if you need a Windows‑only app. That means you can try working in Mac OS X as your daily driver and still boot into Windows for legacy tasks. (apple.com)

A few practical cautions that build on ’s point about app availability: Boot Camp’s assistant creates the Windows partition and a driver disc, but you should back up first (Leopard’s Time Machine is the easiest built‑in option) and plan partitioning carefully — Boot Camp originally expected at least ~10GB free for Windows and XP was the smoothest fit on early Intel Macs; Vista support arrived later and tends to need more RAM/disk. Back up, then partition. (support.apple.com)

If you do serious video work (as you mentioned), native Windows via Boot Camp will give far better realtime performance than running Windows in a VM. Virtualizers like Parallels and VMware Fusion are great for running occasional Windows apps without rebooting, but they trade off raw GPU/IO speed — important for editing. Also, common pro suites (Adobe CS3 era and Apple’s Final Cut Pro) expect more RAM for HD work — 2GB or more is the practical baseline for comfortable HD editing. (wired.com)

Quick checklist: 1) Back up with Time Machine. 2) Decide whether you need native performance (Boot Camp) or convenience (Parallels/VMware). 3) Allocate ample disk space and upgrade RAM if you plan HD editing. 4) Test Mac equivalents (Final Cut, Adobe on Mac) before committing to a full switch — as pointed out, the Mac app ecosystem covers a lot of ground. If none of that applies, your plan to keep both OSes and move workflows across gradually is the safest route. (support.apple.com)

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Member Avatar for John A

>i got bored with it as the majority of my stuff i used was on my windoze pc.
>But hey now mac have released the new osx leopard operating system which from what i
>can see is awesome in every way / or maybe you ppl know different.

If there are a lot of programs that you use regularly on your PC that are unavailable on the Mac platform, chances are that upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard isn't going to change things very much.

To be able to assess your situation properly, you'd have to provide more information regarding what tasks you plan to do with it, but usually the main goal of an operating system is to run programs that have been written for it. A newer version of the operating system may have additional features, but that still doesn't change which programs are available for it.

Member Avatar for Selwyn

HELLO
Sorry i should explain
I have a mac at the moment but kept going back to my windoze pc.
I do a lot of video editing recording etc and on one of the other posts somebody has just introduded me to more than ample amounts of mac videos editing software that i can try out.
This way i can install windoze along with mac leopard on me mac mini and have the best of both worlds with the intension of transfering over to (it just works) mac.

Member Avatar for John A

There is, and almost always has been excellent video editing software available on the Mac platform (particularly Adobe's media suite).

In regards to installing Windows alongside Mac OS X, that'll only work if your Mac Mini is Intel-based.

Member Avatar for Selwyn

HELLO JOE
Yes it is & it has a super duper drive which is also needed.
When i bought mine it was the top of the range 1.8 with a gig of ram & a superdrive , so i shouldn't have any problems (don't speak to soon , sorry no used to programs working as they should)

Member Avatar for John A

Well, then yes, I'd say it will probably work fine for you. One thing to keep in mind though, is that you'll want to install Windows XP on it, as Windows Vista would likely make your Mac almost unusable (not to mention that it'll need oodles of disk space, leaving very little for OS X and your documents).

Member Avatar for Selwyn

i avoid vista like the plague.
Its a nail in windows coffin / all the more for mac
Cheers mate

Member Avatar for iching808

yeah vista is super lame, xp works as a platform but you can't compare it with OS X. iWork is great as office software, and if you really* need that extra functionality get open office, don't spend money on MS. Final Cut pro and Adobe stuff rocks. Honestly there is nothing I have found that can't be done 10X better on a Mac, and the only thing I need XP at work is for the most lame mundane and specialist software ONLY because the makers are too cheap to write a mac port (I find no valid excuses any longer).

Member Avatar for Sharkheart

why call it windoze?

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