K10D PEF files under Linux. All Ahead Full!

It is the art of the possible, using the least cash. Mine might be slow, but it always works and cost very little, around 300 quid. Proving the lie is untrue about not being able to afford a Mac. However, cost of new software especially Photoshop etc is a point to be aware of. Although if one is happy with Elements then it is not expensive. Also Gimp is freely available along with other software.

it's perfectly true, I can't afford a mac which would match or exceed the performance of my current PC, and why on earth would anyone want to "Upgrade" to a slower system?

That is my point. I moved to a "slower" system, at vastly reduced cost. Whilst I do see a slower graphics app performance, as I said it never fails AND I can search the web, receive and send mail and have several other graphical or terminal tasks working at the same time.

I could not before with my PC, do these same tasks and not see Windows slow or crash.

You would indeed need to shell out a lot of cash to replicate your performance. My point is for a lot of people what I am using is more than good enough.

One other thing with Linux and OS X, no viruses. We have a lot less hassle and crap to deal with!

fair enough, seems we more or less agree on what's important, just achieve it by different means.

add the cost of ownership to your math.
the mac comes with software to edit, organize, create digital content with (truly outstanding package), then add the cost you save by Not having to buy spyware/antivirus software, and the cost of servicing.
I think you're caught in the tortise and the hare argument...
faster specs does not always equate to more productivity....
at the end of the year, all the time you waste with downtime, maintenence, working around software limitations (incompatibilities), all add up and take a huge chunk out of your time.

for example....
I can shoot 400 images at an event.
plug the card into my mac, and in two-three hours:


sort images, and select the best.
edit and touch up the best.
print contact sheets.
print a set of 10 8x10's
have a website published to my .mac account.
layout a brochure/tearsheet pdf and print.
make a keynote slideshow
burn a slideshow to dvd
back everything up.

using aperture, ilife, iwork, phtotshop elements I can shoot an event, do all the above and be making presentations, and sales in the same day.
on my mackbook.
stable operating system + software that is Intregrated and reliable, create a workflow that is efficient and works.
I wouldn't trade that for a faster processor, if it meant a glitchy os, or software that didn't intgrate into a seemless workflow.

in car terms it's like shoe horning a bunch of performance parts into compact car. Can be done, specs can look good on paper, but seldom works reliably, winds up costing more than you expect, and still gets it's ass handed to it, by a (low end)porche (or mid level BMW) on a cross country race.

I think it all depends on your system - Windows is not necessarily unstable, but it can be with certain configurations, get the right config and you're away! It seems Mongoose has the right configuration, so why would he want a Mac?

And there are viruses out there for Macs, so I'm surprised you don't have any antivirus software.

I use free anti-virus and free firewall software, and 'servicing' is non-existent, other than my time, if needed.

Horses for courses, as they say. I suspect it's the same as us saying Canon-users are all a bit daft.

Dan

I use the free virus software that .mac offered.
and the built in firewall.
I think I'd make do with any computer available if I had to.
but if asked what I'd recommend...I couldn't in good concience recommend anything but a Mac.
for what it's worth....
I wish I could afford the new mac-pro, with a raid 5 sata set up and 16 gigs of ram.....now that would be insanely fast....
for the time being I'm happy with my Emac/Imac/macbook setup, and I still get angry everytime I even think about my old p233/windows me setup I used to have....must be 7 or 8 years later, and I still want to punch Bill Gates in the face.

You can fool most of the people most of the time. (c.f. Kanikon, Blair, Bush)

well I don't pretend to have a seamless workflow, but that's not my software's fault nearly so much as I haven't got the kinks ironed out of my own methods yet.

I do resent the totally unfounded and repeated implication that my PC is unstable and/or unreliable. She is 6 years old and in that time I believe I could count the number of times she has crashed on my fingers, under either WindowsXP or Linux.

As I said earlier, I don't buy rubbish. People may be forgiven for believing that PC's are unreliable if their only experience is of Packard Bell/eMachines/Time/whatever other rubbish PC World are kicking out at the moment, but please don't tar my machine with that brush. There is a world of difference between a machine thrown together from the cheapest available parts and sold to people who actually believe processor speed is measured in Gigabites (note the intentional misspelling), and a hand built machine who's every component has been selected by hours of painstaking research. And by every component I mean starting with the CPUs and ending with the 40mm auxiliary fan attached to the northbridge.

I don't suggest that a PC is the right machine for everyone. Indeed it seems to me that if you're going to buy an off the shelf box then Mac is as good as any and better than most, with the obvious advantage of a Unix based OS as standard. Still I don't like the suggestion which seems to come from some people that those who use PCs are merely misguided people who haven't seen a Mac in action. There are two sides to every argument.

On a side note I would advise anyone to install firewall and AV software, the increased usage of alternative OSs such as Linux and OSX has brought with it an increase in viruses for those systems. While it is tempting to believe that our OS of choice is so inherently superior to Windows that viruses are impossible, the truth is mainly that most virus writers up to now have targeted Windows because there are more target machines. As numbers of Linux and MacOS machines increase, so they become more viable targets for malware authors.

Still this thread is getting way off topic, it was supposed to be a "look, PEF files can now be processed in Linux without too much hassle" and seems to have degenerated into a PC vs Mac flame war.

correct you are, apologies for my contribution.

I use a PC, but it must be said that Macs do have advantages for imaging. My son Michael is an Architect and they use Macs exclusively. He says they are more stable and less prone to attack by viruses.

Having said that, Windows machines are very user-friendly and almost universal in the wider world. Quality can be an issue with some High Street products, but we have been very pleased with our Fujitsu-Siemens machines purchased via Jessops. A local repair shop gave the internal workings a "thumbs up" approval when a recent repair was needed. It seems that good quality components were used throughout, and the machines geared up with imaging in mind.

Yep, the pile them high and sell/source cheapest parts, is not the best buy. One can do much better even with a Windows machine, by building the PC oneself.

To be fair, I was doing alot of bashing on microsoft, mosttly as a result of one bad experience. (I suspect that if I, as a micro enterprise, sold goods that left my customers emotionally scarred and resentfull for decades, I'd be out of business). My experience surely is not shared by all.

I digress, the reason for this post was to share one other benifit of my beloved Macs...

I know that if I Ever have ANY problems, there's only ONE place to call.
Apple Cannot Blame it on ANYBODY Else....(look at those that got bad batteries...made by sony but Apple replaced them).


If I make a slide show in Iphoto and decide I want to use it in Keynote, add some titles, then decide I want it on dvd when I click the "send to Idvd" button, If I don't get a ready for my tv, DVD, off the burner in fifteen minutes, complete with chapters, titles, menues etc. Apple will get the call and make it right.....

No run arounds, finger pointing, delays, paying for service calls to a multitude of hardware/software vendors looking for answers/solutions, drivers, or replacement parts.

I think that the "blame game" was the worst part of my personal nightmare with windows.

Actually Don that is a great point. When things don't go the way one wants, there is always the friendly local Apple shop. And mainly they are staffed by people who know what they are talking about and answers are far more easily quickly obtainable.

now THAT is a real advantage, and one I confess I hadn't thought of.

The main reason for my distrust of Samsung is from an incident of that type. My Dad had a Sammy laptop which was supposed to come with MS Works Suite. Alas the Works Suite disks were warped and didn't spin.

We called Samsung, who said it was MS's problem

We called MS, who said it was Samsungs problem

So I installed Open Office on it for him, for his purposes it was more than enough.

That lappy was the epitome of poorly designed mass market cheap as chips PCs as well, it got to a point where it would crash on startup better than 50% of the time. Dad replaced it with a new Toshiba (which is the complete opposite), and I installed Linux on the Samsung. Interestingly under Linux the machine is not only stable as a rock, but it's network card has started working again despite having been officially declared dead by Samsung engineers 18 months ago.