[X-HW] guidelines for switching to OSX

[John]

> Have a client with 20 Macs currently using OS9.x on a Novell network 
> still using Appletalk and IPX. The network people are pushing to 
> upgrade to OSX so they can do away with AppleTalk & IPX.

Rendezvous and IP sharing (whichever you guys go with) work fine. Only 
issue - logging onto NT shares, with a different username than the 
machine - the keychain doesn't store the username/password.


> Unfortunately they have several older Macs (even tray loading iMacs, 
> 1st series slow G4's, etc). Yes, I know OS X can be installed on the 
> older slow processor computers, but am only interested in what will be 
> better and functunal. What good is it to but a bigger system, if it 
> will function slower.

The single (and even Dual) G4's are slow (talking 450 MHz range) . . . 
but doable for a test machine. Our designers were using Dual 450's, pre 
MDD, and they got along with them somewhat well. They were mildly slow. 
The "newly purchased" MDD machines are a breeze with OS X. We have a 
scanning station (450MHz?) setup (also plays iTunes for our radio), and 
it works OK, but you wouldn't want to tackle Photoshop (7 or CS) on it. 
My personal machine is a PB G4 550 MHz, 768 MB of Ram - most programs 
work OK, but I haven't tried opening a huge magazine in Quark on it 
yet.

Ideally: Get MDD or higher


> 10 of the computers are is the graphics department and are using 
> Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator and tons of fonts being managed with ATM 
> Deluxe.

Look into Suitcase or FontReserve (both owned by Extensis). We use 
Suitcase X11. I'm not pleased with Font management on OSX, just in 
general. ATM was easy to use - Suitcase isn't bad, but STAY AWAY FROM 
FontBook.

MM fonts, OTF fonts, do not work very well with Suitcase, but are 
supposed to be compatible with OS X.


> Please fill me in on what processor speed the line should be drawn for 
> OS X, and also about font issues in OS X. Fonts need to be turned off 
> and on as needed.

I don't have a MHz #, but max the RAM out if you go with earlier 
machines (ie, 550-800 MHz). The MDD machines we bought the summer 
before the G5's were introduced, work well, and have around 1.5 GB of 
RAM (not maxed, but enough). We have two G5's, and they are very nice. 
(Dual 2GHz). One of our designers had to give up her 17" PB for a day, 
and used the G5 while I was out. She didn't see much of a speed gain.

Quark 6 is nice, and more or less works. It is almost exactly like 
Quark 4, with some additions (multiple layouts in one document, 
synchronized text, etc...). The only thing: Do not use the "Save as 
PDF" feature. It does not work. Photoshop CS is nice, with great 
improvements to Imageready. Illustrator CS - the only feature that 
saves this worthless upgrade is the revamped print dialogue. As cute as 
the 3-D feature is, the added type support (Superscript/Subscript), 
columns in a text box, the stability is about as shaky as ever - some 
machines work fine, others like to crash Ill CS a lot. Also, the new 
type engine requirements leave a lot to be desired. Acrobat 6 is about 
as fast as the machine you run it on - but it is a step up from 5. Not 
too bad on my laptop. Word of warning on Acrobat 6 - if you have a 
colorsync profile name with a small amount of characters (for me, mine 
was named "JP"), Acrobat will not work. I emailed Adobe about this one.

Some of the above is extra...


John Pariseau