Dear Friends,

I have a question for everyone that is very important for me, and I hope that supporters and critics of Ubuntu alike can answer me with honesty.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Firstly I would like to say that I really appreciate Ubuntu and their filosophy of sharing and working together to create a computer solution for the PEOPLE. Excellent. Frankly I think that Microsoft are capitalist pigs, consumerist company who make a very unstable and annoying OS that everyone is forced by sneaky population controlling tricks and dirty business deals with other money thirsty companies to tie people in to their OS. I think that Apple are also money thirsty company, but at least their computers really work!

I have had windows laptops before with the normal problems. For about six months I have been using my girlfriends Macbook 13” with OS X 10.5.6. Compaired to windows, it works like a dream, almost never crashes, and when a program does play up, you can easily work out what it is you are doing or the reasons and just avoid doing that thing, but generally the macbook is a real pleasure to use for its ease of use. The software can easily be downloaded for free using X torrent so that’s no problem either.

My experience with Ubuntu is that I have installed it on my desktop computer, it is great that there no need for antivirus, firewall and all that stuff, but open office keeps unexpectedly shutting down, the same the CD burning program, and with a usb satellite modem it didn’t work, and I had to study and find out how to do many many complicated things to get it to work. I don’t know if these problems came due to my computer being a bit old (2006) and not brilliant spec.

QUESTION: I need to get myself a laptop and want to know the communities opinion. Please tell me how Ubuntu works compared to Apple? Is it worth spending the extra cash on a macbook for seamless and easy use, no need to be fixing it, or would a £350 dell Inspiron with Ubuntu installed work well for a person who doesn’t have the time, interest or money to fix problems?

P.S. I want to use computer for general home use, internet, writing, music, video, photos, etc.

Please comment, and sorry for the long message. Thanks!
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you can't compare the 2, Apple is hardware and software, you use MAC on a MAC system, and commonly people think PC=Windows, its not, PC can be Windows/Linux/other, apple hardware can run others with bootcamp, but isn't exactly the same.

Apple makes good software and hardware, they are just overpriced, if you check their apple hardware, the imac for a 4GB to 8GB ram upgrade it is $1000! Apple can only run on apple branded hardware legally, Linux can run on PC and Apple hardware legally.

The difference?They both use free software, linux is full open source, apple takes opensource and modifies it and close sources it, and then they give a little *tiny* bit back to the opensource community as they are required (if you look at safari about, they mention khtml and kde.) Linux is free and uses open source and the distros usually contribute back, especially with the some paid software if you choose to pay (Mandriva, Novell, Mandriva, your money will go back to linux, Xandros on the other hand goes to Xandros only)

Linux and OSX in resources, even KDE4 performs better and uses less resources then OSX, my mandriva uses 290mb on kde 4 idle, my mom's mac uses about 650mb idle (when i last checked) ram usage does change with cache, but if you have the ram available that is most likely what they are going to use.

Ease of use is something you have to decide, so people find windows easiest, some find OSX, some find ubuntu.Overall in design on paper, OSX has the easiest and due to apple marketing and all the other strings attached, macs are very appealing and get a free ease of use touch pass even if it isn't it all.

Easiest for me? Mandriva KDE4, if you want to try mandriva, on 29th april (11 days from now) the new release of mandriva 2009.1 Spring comes out, if you can wait until 29th of april, they new release will be here for free (download ONE edition) http://www.mandriva.com/ current release 2009.0, but highly reccomend you to wait, 2009.0 wasn't a very stable release, and 2009.1 is going to be (.1s tend to be more stable the .0s)

i say try different linux distros or if you like ubuntu stay with it, if they fall short of the apple os for you, go buy a mac, but i would try all my free options before spending a pothole.

A Mac is a considerable investment but Macs do hold their value for longer than a PC. Also, it is easy to install Ubuntu onto them and dual boot with OS X, providing both OSes.

For general home use, they both would suit fine if you want to just play music and videos and look at photos. If you want to edit these things, the Mac has the better software to do so. To be honest, you don't need to worry about RAM usage as in the end, RAM is there to be used, not preserved and general home use wouldn't make you run out of RAM.

My personal experience is that although Ubuntu is a nice, fairly stable OS, it just doesn't have the software to do what I want although what I use a computer for is different to what you do.

In the end, it's up to how much you can and are willing to spend. You have had experience with a Mac and Ubuntu, if you're willing to spend the extra money for a Mac, I say do so. You get what you pay for.

Edit: If you do decide you want a Mac, a MacBook would be the best one for you.