Apple or Linux?

Question

Which one is the best?
What are the pros of both?
I've never heard much about Linux, other than its good nothing real specific. Is it as virus-free as macs?

Answer 1

Mac:

Pros: Very easy to use, some great apps out there, almost virus free, very pretty interface that even hard core windows users want.

Cons: Can be pricy, can only use it on mac computers.



Linux: (there a so many types, but i am going to talk about ubuntu)

Pros: Free, relatively easy to use, can be used on any computer, free, easy to download/install programs (mostly), basically impossible to get a virus, i doubt they even excist.

Cons: Hardware incompatible hardware problems, not as many great programs, some things that would be simple to do on mac even windows is almost impossible for the average user, have to rely on only community based help, no professional help.



Both are good but if you not too knowledgeable about computers than you may want to keep away from linux, although as a secondary computer it can be great to try out and learn along the way.

Answer 2

Both are pretty much virus free. That's not to say they can't pass viruses on to Windows computers, just that those viruses (over 100,000 of them) do not affect Linux or Macs.



As far as which is best, it is a personal preference. Many Mac users claim that Macs are superior; I will agree that Macs are easy to use and the interface is what Windows tries to imitate (although Windows does it poorly).



However, you can use commodity hardware (inexpensive generic hardware purchased on-line) to run Linux so it is definitely less expensive. The hardest part is to decide which Linux flavor you want to use. I personally prefer OpenSUSE (which is on the laptop I'm using right now).

Answer 3

if you got a macbook pro with dual boot you could run both programs. it would allow you to put aside a certain amount of harddrive space for each :)



I dont' know much about macs [just got a mac book pro, i'm running vista and mac os on it] and i'm just learning about linux [i'm installing it on my old computer]. linux is virus free because there are so many different types of linux that to efficiently create a virus for linux would take more time than hackers are interested in taking.



linux is what's called open source meaning that if you're interested in taking the time to learn you can change anything about it that you want. plus it's free :)

Answer 4

It depends. Linux gives you more versatility but requires you to do a lot of work and have a high-level understanding of system techniques and the "bash" programming system of commands. It's also very cheap.



Mac is extremely powerful and has a lot more ready-to-use programs for it. It's incredibly easy to use, but is quite expensive.



I've used Linux at work and Mac at home for years. I prefer the Mac.

Answer 5

Linux seperates you from most of the commercialized programs used today. I don't know much but have seen linux do some cool stuff like multiple desktops and neat features that I have never seen on windows or Apple. Navigating is a little different though.

Answer 6

Linux is the most virus-free of the three main companies, and as you get better you can get different Operating Systems that can allow you to do cooler stuff.

Answer 7

Both? ;-) Yes, Linux is as virus free as Mac OS X. Its also free, runs on a wide range of hardware, and has a massive base of free software. Being free, you can always run the latest and greatest version... if you want to!



Here are some videos of Linux in action just so you can see:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvnQE1EAEZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVXgSBLCbLQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAD0FKAzQ4w

Answer 8

Apple Mac osx is the best linux is pretty bad because nothing is really compatible with it software wise and on osx you can run windows on it both operating systems do get less viruses

than windows and osx has great features go www.apple.com

Answer 9

It is as virus free as macs. There are many linux Operating systems out there, but the one most user freindly is ubuntu. It is fast, simple, and everything is free:

http://www.ubuntu.com/



If you don't mind paying for Apple software, then why not get both? Dual boot both Ubuntu and Apple, so you can use whichever one you want, whenever you want. Learn to dual boot:



Quote from http://www.philroche.net/archives/osx-and-ubuntu-dual-boot/



"OSX and Ubuntu- dual boot



After playing around with Ubuntu Live (PPC) on my ibook, this weekend my mission was to get OSX and Ubuntu dual booting on my ibook. Here’s how it went.



1. Backup some of my important Docs and data from my existing OSX install

2. Start clean install of OSX, creating 3 partitions, one shared, one for OSX and one for Ubuntu

3. Continue OSX Clean Install

4. Once OSx is installed insert Ubuntu Install CD

5. Choose all default options but when it comes to partitioning, dlete the Ubuntu partition you created earlier. go back and choose to use maximum free space

6. Ubuntu will continue it’s install and will install a boot manager so you can choose between OSX, Ubuntu or CD on boot

7. To view the files in the shared partition, I used the following

sudo mkdir /media/share

and then

sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/hda5 /media/share

I still can’t write to this disk but I am working on it



I now have OSX and Ubuntu running very smoothly alongside each other… let the development begin :)



Update

To get the shared partition working you can to sync the two users’ (my OSX user and my Ubuntu user) user ids and group ids (You can change the ID in OSX netinfo manager). Once this was done and the drive was mounted correctly (in /etc/fstab)

/dev/hda5 /media/share hfsplus user 0 0

I could write to the shared drive in both installs but it caused havoc with permission in OSX as the user ID had changed. I reckon I can just give world write access to the drive though and it’ll still work. "



Good luck

Answer 10

Linux is free. There are no virus' in the wild at the moment for either.



I use PCLinuxOS.

http://spout.ussg.indiana.edu/linux/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/

Answer 11

teh only why you can found your questions bout the linux is to look it up on the net

Answer 12

apple