Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I'm having some difficulty deciding what laptop I should get. The main issue is Windows Vista; It's crap and I don't want it.
I need an OS to run my music software incl. FL Studio (which is available only for Win XP or Vista), plus some games possibly. Plus, all the obvious things like wireless connection (Wi-fi/bluetooth).

I've been extremely curious about Intel-Macs, since they offer the possibility to install and run multiple Operating Systems on one Mac. This sounds really nice, since then I could use WinXP, OS X and Linux without crappy emulation.
However, I do have some doubts about Intel-Macs. Even though laptops are generally not nearly as slick as desktop computers, I'm still looking for a relatively powerful lappy. Either way, in theory, Intel-Mac sounds like the perfect solution for a modern compy in my mind.

Has anyone had any experience with Intel-Macs (with multiple OSes)?

Other nice points for a laptop would be good keyboard layout, good screen, long battery life, smartly located ports & buttons (no USB-ports in the back and no audio ports in the front, for example) and, of course, reasonable price.

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My music
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Well, I have an Intel mac. It's a lot faster than the 6 year old titanium one I had. Bluetooth came with mine, apparently. I don't know if it's optional or not.

The main problem with it is if you're a photoshop user. If you don't know, CS2 isn't native to Intel Chip macs, and it will be fixed once CS3 is out. The thing is, you can't save as for web, thus making it harder to save pictures as another file type. Most of my filters vanished as well.

But that's just about the only thing bad about it.

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And yeah, the keyboard is built into the laptop, the ports are on the left side, the battery has a long life, and I don't remember the price.

So, Intel Macs could be the Laptop you're looking for.

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Make sure you understand what is really practical when it comes to installing other operating systems on your Mac. There are definitely caveats to be aware of.

As for "crappy emulation," I'm guessing you're referring to virtualization (not emulation) products such as Parallels. By all accounts Parallels is a very solid virtualization product, and VMware (the granddaddy of virtualization companies) released a beta of its VMware fusion product lately. Anyway, who wants to reboot every time they want to switch OSes?

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Alienware much?

Reasonably priced for an Alienware.

However, its Vista...so. Yeah.[/url]

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I have an Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook...
The low end one. It's slow and stalls a lot when opening applications. And isn't good for games.

If you could manage to get a MacBook Pro, though, then you'll have one powerful machine.

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Ehh, my MacBook Pro is only good for Pro-Tools and my M-Box. It all depends on what you want to use it for, though. Plus, installing Windows on a Mac is real pain in the rear.

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Well, actually, I mostly had Wine in my mind when I was talking about emulation (Ironically, I just realised WINE's full name is actually Wine Is Not an Emulator...). Truth is, I don't have that much experience when it comes to mimicking OSes or even other platforms.

What I meant to say is that if you "imitate" an OS instead of booting to the real thing, I suspect there will possibly be some incompatibility problems and it most likely requires significantly more power to run anything.
Strong CPU and lots of RAM is imperative to me, since musicmaking can be a very power-hungry process, especially if you use a lot of software samplers, synthesizers, effects etc.

And about rebooting to switch OSes... I suppose I could take that risk, even though it's likely that it would get irritating at some point.

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My music
My LJ

it's gotten easier since the dual core intel macs came out. apple released the Boot Camp beta which allows you to partition your hard drive and select the OS you want to use each time on startup. personally, i wouldn't use it but i understand people who might need to.

i should talk to my friend, he just got a macbook pro and he has a pretty good windows emulator, he said, that runs pretty fast.