I’ve been looking to get the two noisy linux boxes under my desk into a closet somewhere, because they’re so loud. One is a very very old PII or something running Gentoo that I had to put by the window and open because one of the fans was breaking down and the box was overheating, which caused it to make an alarm-like sound for hours at a time. AHEM. The second box is a fairly new Dell but it’s a server-class machine with TB+ of storage and it sounds like a plane taking off sometimes. The Dell is running Ubuntu, and also using the third screen on my desktop full-time. Having Linux right there (and on the same mouse/keyboard thanks to Synergy) is incredibly helpful for debugging and testing things, plus I could run X-chat full-time. When the new Mac minis came out they caught my eye — something not as dog-slow as my Powerbook, with a proper monitor and keyboard/mouse, could really be a great OS X experience and I’d still have all the command-line goodness at my fingertips. I ordered the maxed-out one online (they didn’t have any in stock at the SF store) and it arrived. So far so good! Almost as fast as my PC (AMD FX55 + 4GB).
Dude…I’ll take your old Powerbook…
[Yes, I am getting desperate for an Apple….]
smp
“So far so good! Almost as fast as my PC (AMD FX55 + 4GB).”
So how does it shape up compared to the power-book? I’ve been pondering a Mac mini, however I’d be keen to hear how well the ‘beefed up’ model runs. I’ve held off until the Intel powered models came out — rather than reading some biased article I figure asking someone who is actually using it every day (rather than a few hours of ‘testing’).
I’m _so_ envious. My mini won’t arrive ’til next Friday.
How many computers do you have? I wish I had my PB, a gaming box and a few sandboxes (probably Linux and then Free/Open/NetBSD on the other)!
Brendon, my Powerbook was so slow. I had maxed out the RAM, which helped, but it eventually wore on me and I ditched it for a Sony Vaio. The new mini is *very* snappy and I could see it being totally usable for day-to-day work.
Andrew, right now 4 desktops and 2 laptops. One of the desktops (the old Gentoo box) should be axed soon if things go well. My goal is to have just the mini and the main desktop in my office, which should make things a lot quieter.
Your message inspired me to take better care of backups (I currently have 40GB mirrors in 3 sites). So, I have just bought a 300GB external hard-drive. Unwrap, connect to SuSE and voila! New drive on Desktop. If the noise bothers you, do what I do and use earplugs…
09:57:27 up 148 days, 1:47, 5 users, load average: 0.04, 0.05, 0.01Thanks for the inspiration. *smile*
The new minis make my old mini sad. It’s still a nice little box for what I use it for, though. It scares me that my TiVo is louder than the mini.
Hope you like it Matt! I have a Mac Mini on the way. I’ll be putting 2GB of ram in it, a 7200rpm SATA 2.5″ hd, and it has a superdrive. I’ll finally be swapping the CPU with a 2 or 2.16GHz Core Duo once the prices drop on that. This thing will fly compared to my current PPC mini.
Just got myself one of those puppies also, can’t wait for it to arrive, glad to hear your’s it running fast and smooth.