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Visual Studio on a Mac

  • 19-02-2009 4:16pm
    #1
    Hrududu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,711 ✭✭✭


    I'm thinking of making the switch from PC to Mac. I'll be honest and say the big draw is the sheer prettiness. But there are a couple of things I want to check out first. I mostly use my current laptop for browsing the web, working on photos, sorting out my music and media for my iPod touch and using Microsoft Word. About 10% of my time would be spent using Visual Studio.

    Now I know I can use Virtual Machines or the like to run XP for Visual Studio, but is this a realistic option? Will running something like this slow down performance? The model I'm looking at is the entry model Macbook, and would consider upping the RAM from 2GB to 4.


Comments

  • #2
    ethernet
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,568 ✭✭✭ethernet


    Doing the same thing on MBP. Be sure to go for 4 GB of RAM. It really makes a difference. Running VS 2008 under XP Pro with 1 GB RAM and it's very smooth. Tend to forget there's a VM running in the background at times.

    Both Parallels or VMWare Fusion will serve you well for virtualisation.


  • #3
    Hrududu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,711 ✭✭✭Hrududu


    Thanks for the answers. I just realised that I would probably have to buy a copy of Windows. How much do you think this would set me back?

    Another question I've been wondering about is the difference in hardware. For instance my current laptop has a 2.8GHz Celeron processor. The Mac I'm looking at has a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. I take it that the Mac processor is better, but I don't understand how. Can anyone shed any light?

    And lastly one of the things I'd need to do is to work on a document and be able to copy it to a PC. Is there some nifty way of allowing this or would I have to fork out for a copy of Mac Office?


  • #4
    RichyX
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,221 ✭✭✭RichyX


    Hrududu wrote: »
    And lastly one of the things I'd need to do is to work on a document and be able to copy it to a PC. Is there some nifty way of allowing this or would I have to fork out for a copy of Mac Office?

    A usb flash drive?


  • #5
    ethernet
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,568 ✭✭✭ethernet


    Hrududu wrote: »
    Thanks for the answers. I just realised that I would probably have to buy a copy of Windows. How much do you think this would set me back?
    All legit, in and around €120 for XP Pro. Cheaper if you're a student.
    Another question I've been wondering about is the difference in hardware. For instance my current laptop has a 2.8GHz Celeron processor. The Mac I'm looking at has a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. I take it that the Mac processor is better, but I don't understand how. Can anyone shed any light?
    The Mac has a dual core processor. This offers a noticeable performance improvement over single core. Celerons are entry-level processors with little cache. The extra 800 MHz makes little difference in its case.
    And lastly one of the things I'd need to do is to work on a document and be able to copy it to a PC. Is there some nifty way of allowing this or would I have to fork out for a copy of Mac Office?
    You might like to look at OpenOffice for general documents. It can works with Word documents, Excel, PowerPoint (not Access, at least not directly). It's open source (thus free) and cross-platform. Try and use the .doc instead of .docx format if you intend on swapping between Office and OpenOffice as compatability is better for the older formats.

    If you will be using Office under Windows in the VM, OpenOffice is probably still up to the task of editing the files under Windows. Best way is to see for yourself. If it doesn't work out, you can try Office for Mac.

    Don't know the situation for the other virtualisation applications, but VMWare Fusion lets you access files on your Mac's HFS+ partition and edit them. You need to enable file sharing and the directory shows up as a network share in Windows. No need for messing with memory sticks or emailing documents to yourself.


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