ubuntu: Linux for Newbies

I just spent half a day looking at different Linux options and then settling on one -- the back story is that I'm trying to set up a server in my office, and I thought it'd be fun to make it an NFS server. I'm starting to have my doubts about exactly how much "fun" that is...I might just blow all this off and let people in the office log into the server using Personal File Sharing...but, it was a diverting use of a Saturday afternoon.

And, one of the definite "finds" during this quest is ubuntu, a PPC Linux distribution that couldn't have been easier to get set up and running. You download a single CD volume, burn it (using Disk Utility so that it's an ISO standard CD) and then start up the Mac where you're going to install Linux with the "c" key held down. From there, you configure the installation and let it do some heavy installation and downloading.

Of course, it helps if you have the luxury of installing onto a freshly formatted hard disk, as you'd otherwise have to deal with creating partitions and restoring a great deal of Mac data from backup. For my "server," I'd just installed a 160GB drive in a Power Mac G4 tower, so I was set for the installation.

Anyway, the ubutu installation was a snap, it loaded an attractive, well configured version of the Gnome desktop manager and even installed OpenOffice applications and Evolution, an Entourage/Outlook clone. If feels a little like running the BeOS of yore -- quick, a little weird (compared to a Mac) but self-enclosed and functional, including a built-in application manager (for getting ubutu compatible apps, like the blogger.com app I'm using for this entry) and an update manager for the system.

Overall, a fun and painless entry point for Linux, including access to some great free applications. Now, if I can get the NFS sharing to work...

Mac Mini Intel - Waaaaay Slow?

I had my first hands-on experience with a Mac Mini Core Solo with 512MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive -- in other words, the low-end of today's modern Mac Mini. And I've got to say, it was extremely underwhelming performance-wise. Most disconcerting to me were some slow startups of applications -- Microsoft Word is a bad culprit, although neither Safari or Mail seemed to fly -- and I saw some bizarrely slow window re-draws when switching between various apps. Photoshop took *forever* to get started up, although it draws and paints fine once launched. (I didn't do anything high-end.)

I say this because in the same client's office (I'm their "Mac guy") we have a Mac Mini G4 1.25GHz machine that very nicely drives an Apple 23-inch display, happily running Quark 7 and a host of other apps. I had to pry it open with a crowbar to get the RAM in it...it may have a full Gig, if memory serves, which could account for some of the difference...but, still, that Mac Mini is a perfectly serviceable machine for office work.

Perhaps this is to be expected as the Mac OS and its applications once again goes through a processor-bridging period, but I'm curious since I haven't had much personal experience with Intel-chip machines -- is everyone living with some *bad* slowdowns and sluggish experiences on Intel-based Macs? Or are MacBooks and iMacs better than Mac Minis?

update: Over at Barefeats I came across a Mac Mini shootout that might explain some of what I was seeing -- it sounds like the graphics subsystem is pretty poor on the new Mini, including the fact that it uses system RAM (sometimes upwards of 80MB), which makes 512MB kinda anemic. Sigh.