Mainly because there is no consistent interface, there's a ton of GIU managers out there and every distribution is different. Installing and running programs can be somewhat of a hassle, especially when there is source code but no binaries for your specific distribution - you are basically going to have to compile and install the programs yourself. You'll need to install compilers and dev-libraries to be able to do that properly.

Don't get me wrong here, I like the whole concept of Linux/ There are just a little too many people doing the same thing (gui-, interface-, api-, install/deinstall-wise) in a different way so that uniformity and standards are kept at bay. Good for innovation, not so good for the main stream user. I've even been as crazy as to install PPC Linux on my G4 a couple of times. There's no real advantage for me running Linux on a PPC Mac when there's OSX, so I finally decided to reclaim all harddrive space for OSX.

Whilst MacOSX is based on Unix it does have a consistent interface and a lot of the stuff underneath the hood is catered for with clever scripts and the lot. When you drag an 'application icon' to your application folder in order to 'install' the program a lot of stuff is happening underneath all taken care of by the consistent gui-> UNIX scripting that is going on. Such a thing will just never be as easy on Linux because of the fact that there are so many GUI's out there all doing things their own way. And yet it is possible to get those Linux apps up and running on MacOSX, provided you have the proper libs. Let's face it, OSX has just one desktop which is pretty damn consistent all the way. Of course you can run Xwindows apps but they don't 'fit' the rest of OSX as well as the OSX stuff does.

OSX pretty much accepts any USB mouse/keyboard combo. But does pay to look of OSX support, especially on 'enhanced' keybords with special keys. I just love being able to get iTunes playing a song by just pressing the 'play'button on my M$ keyboard (read above). Volume control, and special keys launching specific apps is just very convenient.

But Matt, you write about getting a Mac, but what is it exactly you are running OSX on? I wrote about an iMac, so is that one of those devices sitting on this metal stand where the entire computer sits inside the monitor housing? What are the hardware specs?

Say if you need to get some retrogaming up and running, look at my article for a good point to start. There's quite a few ways of getting the old Id first person shooters up and running with 'enhanced graphics' using the dos-game files.

Beware that a lot of older macintosh games do only run in OS9 or lower. Classic mode doesn't always offer the needed compatibility (due to limited hardware access) so it does pay to dual boot to OS9 whenever you want to play old 'classic' games. Or use an emulator like Basilisk II or Sheepshaver. I am still waiting for a good PPC virtualisation software that allows virtual PPC machines to be creating capable of running classic OS up to OSX.....

-= Mark Vergeer - Armchair Arcade editor =-