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Comment by netcraft | Hacker News Reader

I'm typing this on a 2009 mac pro. I bought it back then, because at the time it could do everything I wanted it to - snow leopard was fairly new, and as a programmer / photographer, a *nix box with a gui was pretty much my sweet spot. But as the newer os x versions have been released and they have stopped updating the mac pro line, its becoming less appealing as a power user as time goes on. My next purchase probably wont be a mac. I completely realize that I am no longer their target demo, but I don't like my overall options really. But the fact is, for the majority of what I do, a windows 7/8 box with enough power to run linux vms is my best option.

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I love my Mac Pro as a desktop solution, it allows me to attach all the screens I want and it has plenty of processing power. No other Apple product can do the same thing. I love my MacBook Pro as well, but it's just an extension of my desktop.

If the Mac Pro is really done, I'm moving on. I'm not bitter about this, because I had a good time as an Apple/Mac user for more than a decade. Coming from Linux, where multi-screening is still not at the level of Windows 2000, OS X provided a lot of the Unix comfort for me in a safer and much, much saner environment. It is, however, clear where Apple is going. Over the years, OS X users have been steadily disempowered. At some point in the future there will be a merge with iOS. Even though I still consider it my digital home, it feels to me like a declining platform.

The real question is indeed one of alternatives. I dread going back to Linux where I'll wrestle with configuration and braindead-by-design features once again. Nothing else has stepped up in the meantime, but maybe there will be something new one day. One can only hope.

I'm pretty much in the same boat - i've bought a pretty much pimped out mid-2009 17" MBP and as that is getting older, i've looked to maybe replace it with a newer one in the not-so-far future..

However, since i really enjoy having a 17" display (+27" via mini-Displayport) i can't quite see myself "downgrading" to a 15" machine once the current MBP is going to be replaced :(

ok, I have a slightly unrelated question: is it advisable (efficient, easy etc) to run a linux vm over windows or the other way around? Why or wht not?

Anything short of heavy 3D games should be fine on a relatively powerful computer.

I run ubuntu 12.04 on an i5-2500k, 16gb ddr3-1600 ram and intel ssd .. I currently have 4 windows vms running, 1 for adobe cs4, one for adobe cs6 (both windows 7) and 2 xp vms for ie7/8 ... runs just fine, quite often have an IE6 vm running also.

using awesome wm for a triple head setup, which i guess is a lot lighter than unity or whatever.

I ran the same thing but in reverse before, windows 7 with a couple of linux VMs, for making web stuff to run on linux servers it was painful.

oh, and is it's vaguely relevant i bought the bits for a grand total of £700 excluding screens/keyboard/mouse/optical drive.

Can I ask you why you need a VM running CS4 and another one running CS6? And aren't there better ways to test sites with different browser versions?

because i've only just upgraded, and cloning a fresh VM & installing CS6 was quicker than installing it, then removing it when weird things happen (mostly plugins/file compatibility have pained me in the past).

And sure there are lighter ways to test different browsers, but I don't trust them, been caught out before by silly differences like font rendering, testing eflyers outlook express/outlook etc, in the multi-ie-in-one-app things before, now i have a one-keystroke switch between an environment i can trust 100% to be authentic, and is easy to move around too.

basically using vm's in this way is one of the things that let me sleep at night.

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