Introduction
This is a record of my experiences with my MBP covering; initial installation, configuration, upgrades, and daily usage.
Still(15 years) being a Unix contractor working on various customer sites, I have a requirement for a powerful laptop, to take with me wherever I go.:
Me: Can I plug my laptop in ? Customer: What is is running ? Me: It is a MAC. ( I used to say Linux ) Customer: No problem ! (The same answer as Linux)
Previous laptop, Sony Vaio, performed excellently over the years whilst running Linux. Only down-side, besides getting old, was Sony and Vista !
Specification
CPU Intel Core i7 2.66 GHz RAM 8GB Disks 512GB SSD Video nVidia GeForce GT 330M Display 17" WUXGA media DVD/CD Migration to MAC OS X
Wow, underneath the rendering it is so Unix !!!! I was feeling at home in a couple of hours. Most things worked straight away. Some took a bit longer:
- Various Network settings (Ethernet, Wireless and VPNs) - manually enter as and when
- Thunderbird migration (work Mail accounts) - export Linux, Import MAC
- kmail migration (personal Mail accounts) - convert all kmail folders to mbox, import in Mail
- Software -
- OpenOffice
- Firefox - I use both Safari and Firefox
- Apple Downloads - Gimp and Emacs
Tools
VirtualBox
Require for work SuSE 11.2 and Solaris 10. Also need Suse (just in case I need something that worked in my old SuSE Vaio that I missed in the migration or does not work on the MAC). Installed VirtualBox and then added the required guests. Simple. Sweet. Done. And they are both running full proper 64bit which I never managed with the old Vaio … (don't ask)
Solaris guest works brilliantly, allowing design, implementation and functional testing to be performed with confidence in the guest knowing that it will be 'just the same' on the real tin. :-)
SuSE: guest not able to run graphics 'card' in 3D (for KDE4's "wibbly windows") as yet … no longer important so may not get round fixing it.
I have one HP's IPViewer. This is an HP utility supplied for windows and Linux (Not MAC) that enables communications to HP's remote console viewer. IPViewer is used (where I am working at present) to connect to the consoles of a number of legacy HP servers running Solaris. No, there isn't a solaris version either !