OSX or LINUX

[Ranger56]

i have a IBM T43 laptop, i dont like winxp on it and want to change th OS.. Id really like OSX, but i think i may run into driver issues, and linux i think it will work, but its just a bit too fancy for me. i really really want OSX on it, is it possible? suggestions please.

[dsio]

OK, heres the skinny.

OSX is reliant on a SIMD instruction set called Altivec. On x86 platorms, Altivec is replaced by SSE/SSE2/SSE3.

Now, your laptop is a Pentium M Dothan core, which has SSE/SSE2.

So you don't have SSE3, which isn't the end of the world, since it is possible, though very messy and rather difficult to patch OSX to run on SSE2.

The only CPUs that can natively run OSX are Athlon 64s with SSE3, (Rev. Es and Turions) and Intel Yonah or better.

What is interesting is that OSX benefits far more from the low cache latencey of the A64s than it does from intel's Core chips... And its a significant difference.

The other issue, is that currently, the only OSX that will run on non-mac platforms are illegal copies made my various hackers. Now, a few of my mates actually own legitimate copies of OSX, and have used their licences to make bent copies of OSX for their Athlon 64 Turion laptops. I consider that both fair and legal. Stealing software is not.

I would very much recommend linux (Ubuntu is good for ease of use, and works on everything). Linux is getting better every day, and best of all, its free and legal.

[Favu]

You can also get a skin for linux that closely matches the look and feel of OSX, I'm sure

[Ranger56]

can i run photoshop on linux? and will my finger print scanner work on linux? also could someone recommend me a good linux? i have ubuntu on my mind/

[devilmyarse]

You can run almost any Windows app on Linux through WINE. I shall foreworn you though, it's a bitch to get running and a huge pain in the ass to maintain. Once your up and running your fine. I suggest finding a book that explains in depth how to do everything in linux if your a Linux newbie. Trawling through hundreds of dead threads gets very frustrating. I suggest linux in a nutshell, it's very good. Not sure if it goes in depth on wine or not i can't remember.... i know i did have a book that went into depth about it... Just get them on loan from your library, most big libraries carry unix/linux books these days.

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by Ranger56

will my finger print scanner work on linux?

Without any knowledge of the fingerprint scanner, that's hard to say. In any case, what do you use the scanner for? I'm not sure how the fingerprint scanner integrates with the trusted platform module in the T43 - it may be that it doesn't, at which point one has to question the value of said scanner!