My daughter is just about to start an Art degree at Reading Uni and they have sent a list of stuff they need or are advised to get, including computer ("The department uses Apple Macs". She has an almost new Dell Windows lappy and she isn't going to get a new Mac. They haven't said it is mandatory and given the cost of a Mac vs a PC with equivalent power/memory/disk space etc. to a PC I am very reluctant to buy her one

...however, I was just wondering if the gurus on here have any advice on whether it is possible to either make Windows capable of running Apple apps (I'm guessing probably not), or Linux the same (maybe more likely given the Unix origins of MacOS) or really how difficult it is to create a Hackintosh (Mac OS running in Intel-powered hardware i.e. ex-Windows)? I have seen a few websites that claim it is quite easy, but they are usually several pages long and are full of disclaimers like "it might not work like that on your hardware".

Any thoughts, chaps and chapesses?

to be honest, I don't know anything about running mac on windows. But am a mac user and run a parallel on which i run windows xp works quite well.
TBH i have had my mac for 3 years now and its still works like new. my siblings have had 2 or 3 laptops after me. so it might not be a bad investment.

i've got a macbook pro and wouldn't look back. I run bootcamp with windows on it, but purely for work-related stuff that is not compatible. Otherwise Mac does everything for me.

as femster said, they do last a long time and seem to run at the same speed as when brand new. I also find that running windows is heavy on resources and the case is quite warm after a windows session compared to a mac one.

Hackintosh http://www.hackintosh.com/ is an option, but i have a Dell D630 which i have never been able to get working with it. Its very driver dependant, updates don't work, and apple hates it.

Your other option is to run OS X 10.6 within VMware (http://www.online-tech-tips.com/mac-os-x/install-snow-leopard-on-pc/)

Never tried this approach myself, although i do know that its processor dependant. This might be a better option but you will need a powerful laptop to get the best out of it.

Universities have great apple discount schemes though - i got my Macbook Pro through the wife who's a teacher, it was something like 30% off in the end. Here's the link to the discount program.

http://store.apple.com/uk-edu/browse/campaigns/education_pricing/university

Cheers
Tris

for art, design, graphics etc, that kind of stuff, a mac is pretty much a neccesity i'm afraid. i don't even like them, but for that kind of stuff it really has to be done.
also if the department uses macs, she might struggle with compatability issues with working on stuff on her pc when she tries to put it on the departments mac

Conflict of interest declaration- I've run a Mac for the last 5 years and am finishing up my thesis at the moment (300 pages and counting) and haven't had any problems, its almost enjoyable!

However, why not just let her start at Uni and see what happens... Definitely don't buy anything without the discount that she can get through them.....

Art stuff is better and easier on a Mac though...

Chris

Macs are in widespread use in the arts and design world - might be a setback if she doesn't get on the bandwagon.

Saying that - see if discounts are available, as said above.

Thanks for the replies. As I mentioned, it was not mandatory to get a Mac so I think she will have to stick with the Dell in the short term anyway.

I will also look into the discounts and running MacOS under VMware - thanks for the links!

ETA apparently the cheapest Mac is the Macbook at £798 after discount! that's getting on for double what her Dell 1545 cost.

[Edited on 03.09.2010 by Humbug]

This was written by a guy who i work with and provides an price comparison between dells and mac's.

http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2010/8/18_The_Apple_Tax_-_Again.html

Towards the lower end of the spectrum, Windows / dell / generic windows laptops are undeniably a lot cheaper than Apple.

However once you start talking about a decent spec machine which will not be out of date in 6 months, then the price difference is almost nothing.

Cheers
Tris

[Edited on 3/9/10 by Tris]

You can run OSX on non-Apple hardware; I did it with an Advent netbook. However, I bought the netbook because I knew it was possible. Apple only do drivers for the h/w in their machines (obviously), so the likelyhood of it working with some random PC is slim.

I'm now typing this on a Macbook Pro, and it just works, the netbook always had small issues that I never got to the bottom of. Netbook was cheap, but it burnt a lot of my time to get it right.

You also have 2 options to reduce the cost of a Mac - either check out the educational discount or check the apple store refurbished list - you can often pick up good deals there and the computers are as new with a full years warranty. I've been an apple convert for years and would not go back!!!!

Steal from an Apple store, it's only classed as scrumping

I've gone the mac route myself. I've still got a PC but it barely gets used.

You know games are going to be good on the Mac 'cos you played them 3 years earlier on the PC.

Bangs for buck there isn't as much difference as you think. The Mac monitors have a really nice image, the OS is lot less resource hungry and from what I've heard the new machine are not that far off the spec of equivalent priced PCs.

For design work, yes, the mac is the defacto standard because they are pretty stable, the screens are very good and the software is generally designed for Macs first then ported to other platforms.

Hackingtoshes assume specific board combinations etc. so unless you have the correct motherboard e.t.c. you end up buying extra bit.

As Tris says, the price isn't that much different in the end.

I would also recommend not getting a mac mini. By the time you have priced up extra bits e.t.c. you can easily have a 21" regular Mac. The only extra i have for my Mac is a 1TB external usb drive. Everything else came with it or is open source.

Software wise, go to software4students or another suitable site to get educational adobe licences (assuming that they will be using adobe s/w).

If you loved your daughter enough, you'd sell some bits off your Seven so you could afford her Mac.

How much Mac software can't you get for PC now? What is she going to be running, or do the students have a choice?

For a Virtual machine I have never tried load a Mac virtual machine but I found Sun/Oracle VirtualBox (or what ever it is called this week) running on Linux can support most operating systems better than VM Ware. But it has to be the Sun/Oracle VirtualBox not the open source community version.
Both are free for private use.

Macs are the industry standard for graphic design sadly no getting away from that.

[Edited on 3/9/10 by britishtrident]

quote:

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Originally posted by Benzine
Steal from an Apple store, it's only classed as scrumping

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Yes, I do love her, but not enough to pay nearly £800 for an extra lappy when I've forked out £400 a few months ago...

Since she's not yet at uni, I don;t know exactly what packages they will be using, so it's early days