anyone using bootcamp??

anyone using bootcamp? how's it?? my GF is planning to get a new iMac and use it as a daily use window machine. I wanna see if anyone is using it for window and how's your experience? is it ok to use it as a window pc replacement??

It's awesome Landshark. The iMac will come preinstalled with OS X, but I'm not sure if it comes with Bootcamp. But anyways, you can download it off of Apple's site and during install it will give you the option of burning a disc with all of the Windows drivers that you'll need.

When you install Bootcamp it will suggest raping some hard drive space from the OS X partition to make a Windows partition, or you completely erase OS X and make a single NTFS partition with Windows if you wanted (I did this on a mac mini at work).

If you decide to dual-boot then you will see a new control panel in Windows XP titled "Startup Disk". This control panel is identical to the "Startup Disk" system preference in OS X where you decide if you want to boot to OS X or Windows. It will remember your choice everytime, so you won't see a traditional boot loader after POST.

I've been running a mac mini on Windows XP for the better part of a year, perhaps longer, I can't recall. It works fine, although you have to get used to right-clicking the CD/DVD icon in My Computer and then choosing "Eject" from the menu as none of the Macs have eject buttons on their disc drives.

benbaked said:

It's awesome Landshark. The iMac will come preinstalled with OS X, but I'm not sure if it comes with Bootcamp. But anyways, you can download it off of Apple's site and during install it will give you the option of burning a disc with all of the Windows drivers that you'll need.

When you install Bootcamp it will suggest raping some hard drive space from the OS X partition to make a Windows partition, or you completely erase OS X and make a single NTFS partition with Windows if you wanted (I did this on a mac mini at work).

If you decide to dual-boot then you will see a new control panel in Windows XP titled "Startup Disk". This control panel is identical to the "Startup Disk" system preference in OS X where you decide if you want to boot to OS X or Windows. It will remember your choice everytime, so you won't see a traditional boot loader after POST.

I've been running a mac mini on Windows XP for the better part of a year, perhaps longer, I can't recall. It works fine, although you have to get used to right-clicking the CD/DVD icon in My Computer and then choosing "Eject" from the menu as none of the Macs have eject buttons on their disc drives.

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well, she wants dual boot, 'cos she wants to use osx when modding her iphone. and I've read/heard that the latest bootcamp does support eject button on the keyboard too.

the only thing we are worry is how usable it is as a window pc? does it have full functionality like any pc?

I plan to get a mac mini myself too as a kitchen htpc client if it runs windows fine.

oh, have you fold on those mac mini? how hot do they get? is it ok to fold 24/7 on them??

tks again benbaked!

It's all normal pc hardware, the only difference between a intel mac and a intel pc is the TPM chip that allows osx to be installed.

I have bootcamp on my macbook and it works great. I run Vista Ultimate and bluetooth, wireless and everything else works like normal. Of couse I didnt by my mac to use as a primary windows machine I got it to use OSX and windows when necessary. I dont see a problem with using one as a primary windows machine.

tks for all the feedback guys!!

we'll go to the apple store to check out the new iMac & MacMini next week then!!

LandShark said:

well, she wants dual boot, 'cos she wants to use osx when modding her iphone. and I've read/heard that the latest bootcamp does support eject button on the keyboard too.

the only thing we are worry is how usable it is as a window pc? does it have full functionality like any pc?

I plan to get a mac mini myself too as a kitchen htpc client if it runs windows fine.

oh, have you fold on those mac mini? how hot do they get? is it ok to fold 24/7 on them??

tks again benbaked!

Click to expand...

SMP folding is the first thing I tried after I put a T7200 in it. It was folding most WUs with ~20m tpf, I can't remember exactly which units, but the load temps were in the mid 80s-90s celsius.

Here is a program for OS X that allows you to manually adjust the fan speed on the mac mini and some other mac models. I don't know of a way to adjust the fan speed in Windows, but if you apply settings in the program and then warm reboot to Windows the mac will remember whatever speed you've set the fan to, so long as you don't power it off. By setting the mini's fan speed to 5500 rpm I was able to bring the full load temps down to the low 60s. It's not terribly loud with the fan on full speed either.

Man, don't bother with bootcamp. Sure it works, but using Parallels or better yet Vmware Fusion you can run windows and osx at the same time. They both work very well, and you can even hide the windows desktop. Then you just have applications running next to each other in harmony. I swear I often forget one of the programs I'm using is a windows application.

VmWare also supports 3d acceleration for the Virtual machine. It goes up to direct X 8.1 and only works with XP SP2 though.

any more info regarding Parallels and Fusion??

dropadrop said:

VmWare also supports 3d acceleration for the Virtual machine. It goes up to direct X 8.1 and only works with XP SP2 though.

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Are you sure that VmWare supports 3d acceleration? Last time I talk to the guys over at xen development, they said, for 3d acceleration, they need more virtualization support from the GPU. The GPU need the MIMO support that the CPU got. If VmWare does suppoty 3D accel, then wow oh wow!!

They do, I don't know how well it works (my only virtual is win2k for my kid so it's not supported on my machine).

I had bootcamp on my computer for a while, but removed it when I noticed I had only booted to Windows once during the last month. It's still so much of a hassle that when I needed to use a Windows app I would just go bug a college.

Here's the page on VMware Fusion: http://vmware.com/products/fusion/

Here's Parallels: http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/

I still have a beta release of Fusion installed (home computer) though I purchased the license as it worked so well. I've had Parallels on my work laptop since it was released but did not try v3 (as it's not a free upgrade from v2). Parallels had it's fair share of bugs, but they seem to be ironed out already. I use several VmWare products at work for server virtualisation and they are extremely robust and easy to use. They also have a huge library of free virtual machines (Linux) for different purposes that will run on just about any of their products including Fusion.

The catch of course is that when you are running to operating systems concurrently they will use up more memory then having just one (doh). Still, it's so much more usable that I find the price of the applications to be very cheap.

The basic idea is that once OsX has started up you start the virtualisation software and select which Virtual machine to start. Booting up generally takes just a few seconds as it will be in sleep state on your harddisk. You can either use it in a small windows (which can be resized as you wish with the Windows virtuals), full screen (so it's just like running windows), or so that you don't see the desktop at all. On my work computer I use this last solution. I have the windows application bar on the left side of the screen so it's hidden till I move the mouse on top of it, and the osx bar on the right. Fusion supports something similar, but I have not really gotten to use it very much (once). It seemed with Fusion you get a small box which lists all the Windows applications and you can start them by just selecting the app from the box. Unfortunately there where quite a lot of applications which made it hard to find the right one. I'm sure there would be a better way (my 3 year old uses Fusion so I did not bother to find one, I use it full screen so he does not mess up my desktop).

In any case OSX is imo a vastly superior operating system once you get the hang of it. That can take a while if you are really used to doing things the Windows way, less if you've used Linux or Solaris a lot too. I only use windows for the things I can't do without it (Managing a few really old routers, VmWare Virtualcenter, testing with IE).

LandShark said:

anyone using bootcamp? how's it?? my GF is planning to get a new iMac and use it as a daily use window machine. I wanna see if anyone is using it for window and how's your experience? is it ok to use it as a window pc replacement??

Click to expand...

Of course it is...but why would you want to?

The two three reasons to buy a Mac are:
* The look (hint - this is the less big one but still important)
* The OS (hint - this is the big one)
* The cult membership (ALL HAIL [email protected])

So yeah.

It's a better PC than most PCs; I still think it's a waste of a perfectly good Macintosh to run Windows full-time on it.

I agree that it would be dumb to buy a Mac as a windows PC. They are SO expensive compared to other x86 machines. The reason you buy a Mac is that you really want to run OSX, which you can't legally run on other x86 machines. If you are just going to run Windows, get a machine twice as powerful for the same price.

I looked at a MacBook for my sister last Christmas but couldn't justify the expense. Just too much money for too little PC. The laptop I got was 4x the ram (2gb vs 512), twice the hd (160 vs 80), similar procesor (both dual core 64 bit, one amd, one intel), bigger screen, better graphics (ati vs intel integrated), etc., and to top it off, I paid $500 less. Since she didn't really need OSX for anything, I couldn't justify the expense.

well, first of all, it's for my GF (iMac), and you all know how "look" could easily sell to a lady!! I've told her I can build one w/ a lot less $ and a lot more powerful, but not as good looking and I've tried to show her every single case (any form factor from minipc to SFF to full tower), and she just don't like it.....

and as for myself, I want to build a small kitchen HTPC client, I've looked at the aopen minipc, but for the price & spec of the new mac mini, it actually is pretty good when compare to a similar build aopen minipc! this machine is gonna sit inside a cabinet w/ a small LCD TV mount underneath the cabinet. so size does matter in this one.

I don't think the iMac / Mac Mini are that expensive if you start to take into account the performance / form factor / silence.

Typical laptops are so similar nowadays. Most come with a dual core cpu, 120-160 GB HDD, 1Gig DDR2 memory, and DVD burner. I just picked up a Toshiba satellite for my daughter with Vista home premium and these specs for $549.. It seems the large price differences depend on the graphics card and size of the screen. Also, what I call the "ThinkPad-Toughbook factor", or how tough the unit is dictates price as well. I have a Panasonic Toughbook that I have dropped numerous times onto concrete and turf from significant heights, and it keeps on ticking..but the price premium is only justifiable to a specialist market.
As for Macs, well, if you want a Mac, the price premium is simply worth it.

dropadrop said:

I don't think the iMac / Mac Mini are that expensive if you start to take into account the performance / form factor / silence.

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That's actually the biggest reason I'm seriously considering an iMac—It's freakin' quiet.

I actually saw a mac mini in a store and just thought it was a USB DVD drive xP

I hate small computers. I want expandability. Small computers always have proprietary form factors and lack the ability to add needed peripherals. I can see why they might be needed in some cases. I used a microatx for my htpc, and that's the only microatx I've ever used. I'd never want anything smaller.

MRD said:

I hate small computers. I want expandability. Small computers always have proprietary form factors and lack the ability to add needed peripherals. I can see why they might be needed in some cases. I used a microatx for my htpc, and that's the only microatx I've ever used. I'd never want anything smaller.

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I understand you feelings here. I do, however, appreciate the portability and versatility of notebooks, even with their limited expandability. Like everything else, the right tool for the right job. When I'm home, I crave the static reliability of my desktop tower..but I am not dragging it along in my truck out to a jobsite. (Though I do have a nice Onan generator onboard that would do nicely. )