VisorCentral.com - Laptop for College

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Posted by Vinny on 11-15-2001 02:31 AM:

What is virtual pc? An emulator? It's gotta be really slow then doesn't it?

Also, what equivalents are we talking speed wise? How much slower, faster is a 1GHz Athlon 4 vs a 600MHz iBook?

Thanks Again

__________________
-Vincent

Posted by homer on 11-15-2001 02:42 AM:

quote:
Vinny What is virtual pc? An emulator? It's gotta be really slow then doesn't it?

Yes. It is an emulator. It emulates (i believe) the x86 processor architecture.

Is it REALLY slow? Not at all. It's quite nice on a newer Mac. That said, is certainly isn't as fast as Windows running natively on a PC. It's fine for office/productivity/internet apps and even some multimedia stuff, but I wouldn't try running your latest/coolest game on it and expect it to keep up.

One advantage of Virtual PC is you can have as many virtual OSes on your machine as you want, which makes it a GREAT tool for testing windows applications, as you can boot into any OS without restarting.

In theory, with Virtual PC, you can have a laptop that runs OS9, OSX, Win95, 98, nt, 2k, and a variety of Linux and Unix OSs.

quote:
Also, what equivalents are we talking speed wise? How much slower, faster is a 1GHz Athlon 4 vs a 600MHz iBook?

It's not a science. And there are a lot of 'well, it depends' factors involved to. I'd probably say that the 1GHz Athlon is a bit faster that the 600MHz PPC. Macs tend to have slower video rendering, which allows a PC to appear a bit 'snappier' than a Mac. Other speed factors include cache, bus speed, ram speed, the particular software, memory management, etc...

I will say that OSX.1 is a fairly fast OS, at least when compared to OS9.

Bottom line? Try them out for yourself.

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Posted by dampeoples on 11-15-2001 03:39 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer

You can always run Windows on the iBook if you want...

Really? I suppose it doesn't come with Windows, do you have to buy an Apple version or use the same CD I got with my machine? That would solve a lot of compatibility issues.

Posted by dick-richardson on 11-15-2001 04:15 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dampeoples

Really? I suppose it doesn't come with Windows, do you have to buy an Apple version or use the same CD I got with my machine? That would solve a lot of compatibility issues.

Nope, it's a program called Virtual PC. Takes a chunk of your macs hard drive and commits it to windows (how large a chunk is determined by you). It's pretty much a full blown version of windows - including the cd key, bugs, etc.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by dampeoples on 11-15-2001 04:27 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson

Nope, it's a program called Virtual PC. Takes a chunk of your macs hard drive and commits it to windows (how large a chunk is determined by you). It's pretty much a full blown version of windows - including the cd key, bugs, etc.

Cool, when I get that money together for the Mac, I'll check it out, with my new expenditure though, they will probably be on OS XXX when I get ready for a new piece.

Posted by homer on 11-15-2001 04:38 AM:

quote:
Nope, it's a program called Virtual PC. Takes a chunk of your macs hard drive and commits it to windows (how large a chunk is determined by you). It's pretty much a full blown version of windows - including the cd key, bugs, etc.

To clarify, Virtual PC is not windows. It is a x86 chip emulator. It allows you to then install any OS that requires that architecture and have it run through Virtual PC.

You can purchase Virtual PC with DOS, various flavors of Windows, or various flavors of Linux bundled.

BTW, VPC4 doesn't force you to pre-allocate a certain size portion of your hard drive...it simply uses as much as it needs and no more.

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Posted by sowens on 11-15-2001 02:25 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny
I would be able to share files with PC users, too over the network right? What about utilizing university printers, stuff like that?

Thanks

Virtual PC would work, but OSX has all the parts you need to do this already.

I'm going to assume that the university printers are all on the network (most are, at least around my area), and support Postscript (again, I believe most networked printers do). Print Center allows you to print directly to a network printer via standard unix LPR protocol. All you need is the IP address of the printer.

OSX also has samba, so you should be able to set up file shares on the iBook that PC's can access, and the iBook should be able to access any shared folders on PC's.

__________________
It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)

Posted by dick-richardson on 11-15-2001 03:27 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer
To clarify, Virtual PC is not windows. It is a x86 chip emulator. It allows you to then install any OS that requires that architecture and have it run through Virtual PC.

My mistake. Thanks, homer.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by homer on 11-15-2001 06:40 PM:

quote:
OSX also has samba

Wow. Yet another reason to go with OSX...

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Posted by Vinny on 11-15-2001 08:12 PM:

So if I get an iBook, plug it into the network, and configure the network I will have the same access I would have through Network Neighborhood (or whatever its called now in XP) w/ no 3rd party software?

By the way, how much does VirtualPC cost?

Vincent

__________________
-Vincent

Posted by dick-richardson on 11-15-2001 10:17 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny
So if I get an iBook, plug it into the network, and configure the network I will have the same access I would have through Network Neighborhood (or whatever its called now in XP) w/ no 3rd party software?

That's right. I forgot about OS X.

quote:
By the way, how much does VirtualPC cost?

$100-something, depepnding on which version of Windows.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by sowens on 11-16-2001 03:07 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny
So if I get an iBook, plug it into the network, and configure the network I will have the same access I would have through Network Neighborhood (or whatever its called now in XP) w/ no 3rd party software?
Vincent

Essentially, yes. I haven't configured samba on OSX yet, so I don't know what, if any, GUI Apple supplies. However, there's only one file to modify (the smb.conf file. I believe it's in /etc) and it's pretty well documented on the net. There were also some problems in early versions of samba where it wouldn't connect to an NT machine due to MS's encrypted authentication methods. There are registry hacks to correct this from the NT side, but samba supposedly has fixed this in it's latest releases (again, I haven't had a chance to play with that yet), and that's also well documented on the net.

__________________
It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)

Posted by Vinny on 11-17-2001 08:38 PM:

Okay--checked the MCSA and it has some mac software including office v.X. I know mac disks are formatted differently so PCs can't read them w/o third party software. Does this include over the network? If for example I made a spreadsheet in excel or a word document could I just e-mail it to someone with Office XP w/o any trouble?

Also, why does the info page say w/ OS X and Mac OS9 installed? Why would you have OS9 on the system too if you had OSX? And finally (), How much space does the OS take up? I.E. would a 20GB HD be enough or is a 30GB one recommended?

Thank you for all your help!

__________________
-Vincent

Posted by JHromadka on 11-17-2001 09:58 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny
Okay--checked the MCSA and it has some mac software including office v.X. I know mac disks are formatted differently so PCs can't read them w/o third party software. Does this include over the network? If for example I made a spreadsheet in excel or a word document could I just e-mail it to someone with Office XP w/o any trouble?

Also, why does the info page say w/ OS X and Mac OS9 installed? Why would you have OS9 on the system too if you had OSX? And finally (), How much space does the OS take up? I.E. would a 20GB HD be enough or is a 30GB one recommended?

Thank you for all your help!

Can't help you with the floppy question; I haven't used a PC or Mac floppy in years. MS Office files are seamless so if you create a Word .doc on the Mac or PC and email it to someone, they will have no problems with opening it.

Apple includes both OS X and OS 9 on all of its machines. Not all applications run natively in X yet; for those applications (like Photoshop), the Mac runs OS 9 then launches the Classic (OS 9) application. The only Classic app I use is Palm Desktop.

Hard disk space depends on you. I think OS X used about 1 GB for everything I installed. My PowerBook only has a 10 GB drive and I haven't ran out of space yet. When I do, I plan on getting a firewire external hard drive.

__________________
James Hromadka
Old Friend

Posted by homer on 11-18-2001 12:12 AM:

quote:
I know mac disks are formatted differently so PCs can't read them w/o third party software.

Note that Macs can format PC disks, so you could just keep on using PC disks if you need to share file via sneakernet.

Also note that Macs no longer have floppy drives. If you want one, you'll need to get an external one.

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Posted by Vinny on 11-18-2001 06:52 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer

Also note that Macs no longer have floppy drives. If you want one, you'll need to get an external one.

Hmm, I didn't even notice. I haven't used the floppy on my newer computer more than thrice I don't believe. A welcome deletion if you ask me.

Here's another question. On PCs you can go into the BIOS and add a power-on password. Can you do that on macs too? Security would be of even more concern with a notebook.

__________________
-Vincent

Posted by homer on 11-18-2001 03:54 PM:

quote:
Here's another question. On PCs you can go into the BIOS and add a power-on password. Can you do that on macs too? Security would be of even more concern with a notebook.

OS9 can be password protected. You can even use a voice signature (a cool, but rarely used feature).

OSX I'm less familiar with, but, basically, it's unix. You can set up root users and then restrict other users.

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Posted by Vinny on 11-18-2001 08:37 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer
OSX I'm less familiar with, but, basically, it's unix. You can set up root users and then restrict other users.

I'm afraid I've never used any of the *nix's before. How hard would that be compared to just going into the BIOS on a PC and setting it up?

Also, it would have the normal PCMCIA slots right? Probably a Type II and TypeIII slot? I could get a adapter for CF's and use it on an iBook too then (woohoo, another cable I could lose).

And lastly, does anyone know where I can get some hi-rez photos of the thing? the QTVR isn't very clear on the page.

Thanks

__________________
-Vincent

Posted by sowens on 11-19-2001 01:25 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny

I'm afraid I've never used any of the *nix's before. How hard would that be compared to just going into the BIOS on a PC and setting it up?

On OSX, it's actually quite simple. From the Apple menu (click on the little blue apple in the top left corner) and select System Preferences from the menu. At the bottom right corner there should be a Users icon. Click that to add users.

I think OSX will only require a user to log in if there's more than one user on the system. I say this because I'm the only user on my system, and I never see a login prompt whenever I start up. Hmmm, now that I think about it, it could be that I never log out whenever I shut the system down.

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny

Also, it would have the normal PCMCIA slots right? Probably a Type II and TypeIII slot? I could get a adapter for CF's and use it on an iBook too then (woohoo, another cable I could lose).

And lastly, does anyone know where I can get some hi-rez photos of the thing? the QTVR isn't very clear on the page.

I don't remember if the iBooks have a PCMCIA slot or not. The best way to find out for sure is to stop into your local Mac shop (CompUSA and Circuit City spring to mind. No Apple stores locally.

) and check them out in person.

__________________
It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)

Posted by homer on 11-19-2001 05:01 PM:

When did Circuit City start selling Macs? For a long time, they were vehemently against selling Macs.

CompUSA is ok. Microcenter is great. The apple store, of course, is ideal.

Most major metro areas will have a few independant mac shops. Also, if you are near a college, most will sell Apples via the book store or computer resources center.

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

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