Worth getting a Mac just for the hardware? (Not planning on using Mac OS)

[dpatel304]

I'm thinking about getting a Macbook because the build quality seems extremely solid and I like the look and feel of the screen, keyboard, and mouse. But I primarily want to use it to run Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I have never had the chance to experience the Mac OS for more than an hour, and I'm really curious to try it out. However, at the moment, I am pretty much dead set on having a laptop with both windows and Ubuntu (and possibly just ubuntu in the long run).

I'm wondering if its smart to get a Macbook just for the hardware and not the OS. Or would it be wiser to just get a comparable PC Laptop as there are more options and they seem slightly cheaper.

Thanks in advance.

[dglienna]

Buy one MAC or three PC's, for about the same cost.

You can dual-boot Windows 7 using Virtual XP, and I'd bet you could build a Linux VHD, and dual-boot with no problems.

[John E]

I've often considered doing this - not so much for the hardware, but because cross-platform development would be much easier on a machine that could triple boot into OS-X, Windows and Linux.

Having said that.... no matter what laptop you buy, if you're planning to run Linux on it I would strongly recommend finding out how other users have fared with the same hardware. The old story that Linux will "run on anything" is a total myth in my experience. Linux tends to be rather fussy about what hardware it supports. Perhaps not as fussy as MacOS but certainly a lot fussier than Windows.

[dglienna]

Depends on the version. I've run Ubunto 9.04 from a CD on quite a few different models. Everything worked

[John E]

True - but that's why I'd recommend finding out about other peoples' experiences. For example, when I first tried Linux (about 3-4 years ago) my first experiences with it came from running Ubuntu from a live CD. This seemed to work perfectly on both by Toshiba laptop and my "beige box" desktop PC. However, when I installed Ubuntu for real, it was hideously unreliable. And lots of stuff that had worked from the live CD mysteriously didn't work when I progressed to a permanent installation. This was back in the days of Dapper so of course, things will have changed since then - but even now, if I had any thoughts of actually buying a machine to run Linux on, I'd do plenty of research beforehand. Once bitten, twice shy I suppose....

[dglienna]

I also got it running in Virtual PC 2007 last year. It was a PITA getting the settings right. It's a shame that I can't use the VHD in Windows 7.

[Robbin Alberts]

datel304 did you solve your problem yet ?