Until recently, my desktop PC was running Linux, like all of the other desktops at Lunatech. Since it was time to get a new PC with powerful hardware, I took the opportunity to join the laptop users and switch to an Apple Mac for software development. I now have my favourite development machine ever, and not just because it is shiny either.

Note that I do not particularly care whether you use a Mac; I just wanted to explain why I am so happy with mine.

Hardware

The new Mac Pro is not so much a PC as a 20 Kg aluminium beast. I got fairly basic specifications with extra memory - two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors with 5 Gb of memory. I now have plenty of memory to run Eclipse, JBoss and PostgreSQL, along with the other applications, and everything is really fast. Happiness is JBoss Application server starting-up in nine seconds.

A better operating system

However, the real improvement is running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) instead of Gnome or KDE. Gnome and KDE are not bad, but OS X is so far ahead that it just seemed stupid to have a better operating system at home than the one I use for most of the day at work.

One of the benefits is better hardware integration - more things just work: web cam and video chat, Bluetooth, printer set-up, sound and monitor set-up. Linux cost me a lot of time to get sound and 1920x1200 resolution working last year.

Software

Some of the software is just the same to use on OS X as on Linux:

• server software, such as JBoss Application Server and PostgreSQL
• Eclipse
• NeoOffice (OpenOffice)
• Firefox
• Gimp.

However, some of the other software I now use regularly is a great improvement over what I had before:

• Apple software that comes pre-installed - Safari (web browser), Mail, iCal (calendaring), iChat (chat client), QuickLook/Preview (file viewers) and Address Book
• OmniGraffle - diagram software
• Colloquy - IRC client.
• GraphicConverter - bitmap image editor

I have been using GraphicConverter for years, since I never really need Photoshop, but it would be nice to find an image editor with a more modern inspector-based user-interface like the iWork applications. I have not yet fallen in love with any of the newer OS X image editors, such as Seashore, Pixelmator and Acorn, although they look nice and have potential.

Peter Hilton is a senior software developer at Lunatech Research.

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