How FM use impacts purchasing decisions

[Rene Stephenson]

Thanks, Art. You're right, I'm still warped back in time to the concept that Vista is the new kid on the block with all the inherent "don't buy it until they work the bugs out" cloud.

My main client has UNIX/Linux servers, and I'll be setting up a server at home whenever the basement finish-out project is, well, finished. Whether I set that up as a Linux server or a Microsoft server is yet undecided, but I'm leaning toward Linux for cost and resource/overhead reasons. Regardless of the laptop OS, I'll still be using mostly PC desktops in our home network (currently 5 PCs), so I was thinking Linux would be the more flexible server setup.

Seems like I have heard of FM for UNIX, but it seems a blue moon. Is that like the FM for Mac, also got end-life'd? If so, the idea of a Linux laptop would probably carry the same liabilities as a Mac laptop? 

Either way, does anyone have experience sharing currently active FM files between users who run FM in different operating systems?

I don't know why I had the impression that Macs are faster systems than PCs? Is that just some grassroots advertising campaign? The attractive thing to me about Macs is the graphics capabilities and the fact that I have kids in school who could benefit from it when I trade up again (which I typically do every couple of years at a minimum, to keep on the higher end of available performance). I don't really get into the music side of electronics at all.

I had not heard Dell had a next-day replacement. That is good to know. Of course, it usually takes about 2 weeks for me to get all the programs loaded up and user settings tweaked out anyway, and I wouldn't be able to just image a hard drive over if I have to move to Vista. For that matter, I have seen too many issues with Adobe products in general for me to use the old standby of keeping a recent drive image as a backup in case of catastrophic failure. Shame - that certainly was the fastest way to recover. Surely there's a faster way to config and tweak out FM... I guess I can just copy the maker.ini and fminit and plugins directories to a customization CD?

 
Rene L. Stephenson



----- Original Message ----
From: Art Campbell <art.campbell at gmail.com>

Rene,

You're sort of ignoring the fact that Vista is past the first ship
early adopter milepost. It's a relatively known quantity, and the
amount of twiddling ...

Last I heard, Mac's market share has crept up to about 3% of business
systems... so while you may be able to make it a viable solution, you're
going to spend more time twiddling a dual boot or emulation
environment to run Windows. And pay more for the processing power, but
it may be worth it to you.

So if you're looking recommendations for a Windows laptop, I'd go with
an upper level Dell with next-day replacement...
look at the ruggedized models put out by Panasonic, Dell, and some
other vendors, although I don't have any personal experience with
those models.

Art