[nycbug-talk] new. . .ibooks. . .

[Isaac Levy]

Hey all,

On Feb 18, 2004, at 6:38 PM, G. Rosamond wrote:

> i didn't realize the mach kernel on an ibook is only 3.5 meg.  pretty
> impressive, i think.

I'm no kernel hacker, but from years of using macs, Mach is a 
microkernel- Mach dynamically loads modules, optimal for a PPC, as I've 
experienced- so the base is quite small indeed.  Loading up a straight 
Darwin box shows this off- it's an extremely minimal unix.

> don't know whether to make the move for a ibook or powerbook.  if i
> purchase new, recommendations.

My experience, (I'm at my 5th powerbook now), is to buy the best 
processor you can afford, and it will be about 3 years before it starts 
feeling slow...
The powerbooks, in general, have a ton of refined perks that add up to 
justify their value, (more video ram for external display support, 
usually more interface ports etc... [i.e. pci cardbus slot]) - depends 
on what you think the jump is worth, the iBooks are totally sweet rigs.


> i realize the ppc world is very different than that of intel.

Only comment I have with regard to ppc and x86, is that I never tend to 
think of ppc vs. x86 so much as their being totally different beasts 
altogether:

http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/01q2/p4andg4e/p4andg4e-1.html

MHZ comparisons are a silly comparison, as context in what is being 
processed is more important to make things faster, and PPC is extremely 
well suited to multithreading, important to a gui-based workstation, 
IMHO.

With the G4's, Alti-vec is amazing for any kind of video display, as a 
server, Apache2 built with MPM is breathtakingly fast, although the 
actual 'clock speed' is slower.

The G5's, again, whole new beast...

> so how
> concerned should i be about an 800 mhz box?

It's a great speed- a GHZ or more is screamin' though...

> what about ram?

I get it at crucial.com for mac stuff, have had good experiences with 
them for years- I don't care to remember ram speed/parity etc... and 
their prices are market value.

Rocket-
.ike