# MacBook vs.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 3, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402 "2007-07-03T06:00:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/1 "2007-07-03T06:00:52Z")
Hi, I need some help on a new laptop purchase! I have an old toshiba laptop that is currency running Ubuntu 7.04. The machine is definitely on it’s last legs; I expect it to die any time within the next 3 months, probably a lot less. I’ve been looking around at laptops to replace mine when it dies, and I was surprised at the hardware in a MacBook (not pro) for the price. I am in Canada, so I am quoting the specs/prices that relate to me. This is the MacBook that I am looking at [http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/61024006/wo/B15TNtnqe8KH3jHmExt10XriAfp/8.?p=0](http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/61024006/wo/B15TNtnqe8KH3jHmExt10XriAfp/8.?p=0) It is $1250 (CAD), shipping included for an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 Ghz processor (no upgrades). The best non-Mac comparisons that I can find are: 1300 + shipping for an Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz [http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.grp?lg=en§ion=1&group=1&product=5732&category=](http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.grp?lg=en§ion=1&group=1&product=5732&category=) 1400 + shipping for an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.67 Ghz [http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.grp?lg=en§ion=1&group=1&product=7211&part=6484#spectop](http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.grp?lg=en§ion=1&group=1&product=7211&part=6484#spectop) 1330 + shipping for an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66 Ghz [http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3106996](http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3106996) 1300 + shipping for an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.73 Ghz [http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3113048](http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3113048) 1300 + shipping for an AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile 2.0 Ghz [http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3203544](http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3203544) There are three common things that the PCs tend to have better than the MacBook: -More RAM (some have 2GB) -More HD space (many are 100-150 GB) -DVD-Burner I don’t think I have a problem with the RAM, but I’d like the opinion of a MacBook user: Will 1GB RAM be enough for Rails development, watching DVDs, surfing the web, and instant messaging? I may do some word precessing and spreadsheets too (OpenOffice)–but most of the big documents will be done on my desktop. I don’t about the DVD-Burner. I have one on my desktop and that is enough. Can I format a USB hard drive so that it is readable and writable by both the MacBook I am looking at and Windows XP Pro (and preferably Ubuntu 7.04)? If so, I don’t care about the HD space. Here is the really trick part of the question: Both my wife and I love Ubuntu. Both of us have used macs and don’t like the UI. So I will almost definitely erasing whatever OS comes with the laptop I buy and instead installing Ubuntu. Given the above, my decision should be based primarily on the hardware’s price/performance/reliability. Should I buy the MacBook? Here are a few other considerations: -Lighter is highly valuable - the MacBook is lighter than all the PCs i noted -Screen clarity is important - I think the MacBook is better here; can anyone confirm? -I will be doing rails development at least part time. Is it possible to dual boot Ubuntu and Mac OS X? If so, considering that I have tried and generally don’t like the OS, how valuable is booting into Mac OS X just for rails development? Currently I use jedit. It’s been great, but I don’t have the time to add all the shortcuts that seem to be built-in to TextMate -Does the MacBook I am looking at come in black? I couldn’t figure it out from the apple website. This isn’t that important, but black is much cooler. -My wife will KILL me if I make her use Mac OS X. So far I have assumed that I could install Ubuntu on it, is that assumption true? Can someone who has done it say how easy/hard it is? Thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to reply!!! PS. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not make this into a Mac is better than Windows. My laptop will not have Windows (except if I have to test in Internet Explorer 6/7). ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 7:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/2 "2007-07-03T07:03:06Z")
On Jul 2, 2007, at 11:59 PM, DyingToLearn wrote: > I don’t think I have a problem with the RAM, but I’d like the opinion > of a MacBook user: Will 1GB RAM be enough for Rails development, > watching DVDs, surfing the web, and instant messaging? No. (IMHO) That said, if you want to buy more RAM there are third-party RAM merchants ([crucial.com](http://crucial.com), [transintl.com](http://transintl.com)) which can at least bring the cost down. > Can I format a USB hard drive so that it is readable and writable > by both the MacBook I am looking at and Windows XP Pro (and > preferably Ubuntu 7.04)? If so, I don’t care about the HD space. “maybe”? IIRC OS X can read and write to FAT32 volumes. I haven’t tried it, though. but… > Here is the really trick part of the question: Both my wife and I > love Ubuntu. Both of us have used macs and don’t like the UI. So I > will almost definitely erasing whatever OS comes with the laptop I > buy and instead installing Ubuntu. In that case a Mac laptop is just a PC running Ubuntu. It has some niceties, but most of the magic is in the software. If you don’t like the software then you just paid a lot for hardware you can often get elsewhere for cheaper. As to the prior question of what you can format the disk to: if you’re running Ubuntu then the question is not whether you can format a volume so the Mac and Windows can both read it, the question is whether you can format a volume so Ubuntu and Windows can both read it. Of course this all assumes you _can_ install Ubuntu on a Mac. I haven’t tried it (well, other than in Parallels) nor heard of anyone trying it, so I don’t know. > Given the above, my decision should be based primarily on the > hardware’s price/performance/reliability. Should I buy the MacBook? Are you carrying it around with you a lot? One thing to be said for the MacBooks is that they tend to be fairly rugged – they’re a descendant of the iBook which seems to be designed to be used by drunken college students. Otherwise you’re basically buying a PC so you should be able to compare price/performance straight up. > -Lighter is highly valuable - the MacBook is lighter than all the > PCs i noted There are dramatically lighter laptops than the MacBooks – look at some of the Toshiba and Panasonic ultralights. Dell has a 3 lb’ish laptop. There are rumors that Apple is going to come out with an ultralight sometime soon sometime maybe. These rumors have been around since just about forever, though. > -I will be doing rails development at least part time. Is it > possible to dual boot Ubuntu and Mac OS X? If so, considering that > I have tried and generally don’t like the OS, how valuable is > booting into Mac OS X just for rails development? Currently I use > jedit. It’s been great, but I don’t have the time to add all the > shortcuts that seem to be built-in to TextMate I’m guessing it’s possible to dual boot but that’s just a guess – I haven’t done it, nor do I know anyone that’s tried. As I mentioned, I don’t even know of anyone installing Ubuntu as a primary OS. Dual booting for nothing but development seems like kind of a pain – I wouldn’t want to do it but YMMV. > -Does the MacBook I am looking at come in black? I couldn’t figure > it out from the apple website. This isn’t that important, but black > is much cooler. The higher end MacBook comes in black. When they first came out I compared and you could equalize the feature sets at which point black cost $150 more. I’ve heard that premium has dropped to $50 but I haven’t checked. > -My wife will KILL me if I make her use Mac OS X. So far I have > assumed that I could install Ubuntu on it, is that assumption true? Someone else will have to chime in on this. > PS. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not make this into a Mac is better than > Windows. My laptop will not have Windows (except if I have to test in > Internet Explorer 6/7). One way in which a Mac will be better than Windows (and Ubuntu) is that you can run a VM system on Mac OS X (Parallels or VMWare) and then put Windows and Linux in a VM on top. This lets you have Windows, Linux and Mac browsers up _at the same time_ to test your Rails app. -faisal ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 7:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/3 "2007-07-03T07:10:08Z")
Wow. Very thorough response. That is really helpful. Thank you very much! ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 1:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/4 "2007-07-03T13:39:01Z")
Not a Mac user (yet… it’s on the buy list as soon as I have the money) but 1GB of RAM should be _plenty_ for Rails development. On my WinXP laptop I ran Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 Express, Oracle express, MySQL, Adobe Photoshop and Office 2k3 on 1GB of RAM and it never gave me any problems at all; you should be fine with 1GB. Also only a certain type of Macbook comes in black (and costs about $200 US more since it has more HD space that you can’t modify). If you didn’t see the option, then it’s not the one. I know because I’ve been looking at MacBooks myself lately 🙂 Hope this helps. – Wayne [http://www.rubykoolaid.com](http://www.rubykoolaid.com) ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 1:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/5 "2007-07-03T13:57:09Z")
On 03 Jul 2007, at 13:37, Wayne M. wrote: > Not a Mac user (yet… it’s on the buy list as soon as I have the > money) > but 1GB of RAM should be _plenty_ for Rails development. On my WinXP > laptop I ran Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 Express, Oracle > express, MySQL, Adobe Photoshop and Office 2k3 on 1GB of RAM and it > never gave me any problems at all; you should be fine with 1GB. If you ran all of these together, memory swapping galore 🙂 But 1 GB of RAM on a MacBook is more than sufficient for pure Rails programming: TextMate, iTerm/Terminal, Safari, Firefox If you have plenty of other apps open all the time (like I have) such as Photoshop (big memory eater), OpenOffice (another one), Mail, Adium, iCal, iTunes, Vienna, … then 1 GB of RAM will still do, but swapping occurs and spoiled as I am, I hate the waiting between app switches. Simply put: the more RAM, the more applications you can run at the same time without losing speed. I always put in the maximum amount of RAM possible. Best regards Peter De Berdt ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/6 "2007-07-03T21:51:18Z")
Get the best of both worlds Dual boot system, XP and Ubuntu [http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/lpt/a/6554](http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/lpt/a/6554) Setting up Rails on Ubuntu [http://paulgoscicki.com/archives/2005/09/ruby-on-rails-on-ubuntu/](http://paulgoscicki.com/archives/2005/09/ruby-on-rails-on-ubuntu/) Did all of this this weekend and system is running great ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/7 "2007-07-03T14:58:17Z")
I am using a MacBook Pro with 1GB of RAM in it, and it works just fine for Rails development. In fact, I often have Photoshop CS3, TextMate, Terminal, iTunes, Adium, Vienna, and Cyberduck all going at the same time. Along with my browser and email client. It never seems to miss a beat for me. Could it use 2GB+? Sure, it could, but the 1GB gets along just fine for me. I would think that it would be the same for the standard MacBook. –Cory ---
**Author:** ![DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@DyingToLearn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/DyingToLearn)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 8:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/macbook-vs/108402/8 "2007-07-04T08:50:24Z")
If you got 2 GB of RAM, you could run Ubuntu, VMWare Server (now free), and Windows XP in a VM, so you’d still have access to Photoshop and the like. This means no reboots, and yes, WinXP will be slower this way, but it’s easier to do that IMO than to dual-boot. Robert On 7/3/07, Craig C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Did all of this this weekend and system is running great – Robert W. Oliver II CEO of OCS Solutions, Inc., Web Hosting and Development > **[OCS Solutions Since 1997 Providing Reliable Quality Web Services](https://www.ocssolutions.com/)** > > OCS Solutions since 1997 provides quality and affordable managed web hosting, server admin, development and more. Contact us for the best reliable services!