torrents on a mac

Yeah..

http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?...17&button.y=13

I use Tomato Torrent, but the Bits Torrent program is also pretty useful..

You can use the standard Bittorrent for Mac client. It's simple and easy to use. There's also a torrent client called Bits on Wheels that I've been using lately. You can monitor ALL KINDS of torrent information with the program. Azureus is yet another option for torrents on a Mac. It works, although there hasn't been any certain thing to draw me to it for good. All of these can be found through google.

For FTP, look up Cyberduck on macupdate.com. It's a free client that works quite well. If you prefer the column view, there's also Transmit, though a license costs $20 for it. I downloaded the Cuteftp for mac version and used it's trial version for some chmod'ing work. I haven't found an ftp client that is easier to work with on that specific function than cuteftp.

The last time I remember using it (I honestly don't Torrent much), was to download torrents of Gentoo and Ubuntu Linux CD ISOs and the performance was pretty decent, (as compared to trying to download the same files straight from mirrors..). I didn't try and see what my download rates were though..

I'm not sure what more kind of information you are looking for. To be honest, there are a bunch of other reasons to choose one laptop platform over the other. But I would say that while there aren't as many Torrent or FTP clients on the Mac platform, there are some good ones that work well..

(I like the stuff I've been reading about Turion laptops and am seriously considering one for a straight linux laptop..)

I use Azureus...I've been able to hit my speed limit on really well seeded torrents.

ditto here on azureus, i use it on my PC and my iBook

Well for me learning Linux has been a real challenge. (I'm not nearly as computer savvy as most here..) I gotta tell you though everytime I learn more with Linux, I feel like I've really accomplished something. So far I've installed Gentoo on an Apple iBook, Powerbook, and on a homebrew PVR I built on AMD64. It's the most awesome experience to be building something supported through open source. I've always been able to find the right software for something I needed to do.

But for me the final straw is that Linux is something that belongs to the users. You don't have to support companies practice that you don't like, and I've had frustrations with stuff that both Microsoft and Apple have done in the past. When you support Linux you are really feeding into something that will benefit everyone using the software. If you start to create stuff, you don't have to worry about using proprietary file formats if you don't want to.

A word of warning from my experience. You should be really comfortable with command line stuff if you go the Linux route, and you need to learn a lot about how the OS works. As an example, even though using the WiFi card on my Powerbook is extremely simple and requires no configuration, I didn't even attempt to get it to work with Linux, because it's far more complicated to accomplish. It's definitely not for the faint of heart. It's harder for me to install Linux on a machine than it is for either Windows or Mac OS. But I think in the long run it's definitely worth it. I'm going to be moving back to a WinTel platform to build my Linux laptop because while there is good support for Linux on Mac (PPC Linux) it still lags support in Intel (x86). Having said that not only will you find good FTP and Torrent clients for Linux, almost all of the software you find for Linux will almost always be free.

If you think you want to start off, it's probably easiest to get your laptop, whether WinTel or Apple, installed with the stock OS, and then create a partition on your hard drive for Linux. Then when you have time to tinker, boot into it and play around until you get good and comfortable. You should be able to make a good decision about if and when you want to make the full switch..

Uh...if you couldn't do anything with OS X on your friend's computer EvulReplika, you sure as hell aren't going to be able to do anything with Linux. Add to that the fact that OS X is everything Linux is as well as being a mainstream OS with mainstream consumer apps available for it.

The cheapest iBook is 999—899 with educational discount—and there aren't many PC laptops for that price that offer the same features.

It depends on how you define fast.

It'll be fast for an iBook, the extra memory really helps OS X, but it won't be the fastest computer out there today. It will be able to handle pretty much everything you throw at it, however, without complaining.

depends on what you running, mac os x will manage the extra ram better so the 1.2 ghz ibook will multi task better than the 1.8 ghz centrino.

but in gaming performance the centrino wins

On some things it'll be slower than the Pentium M and on other things it'll be faster...especially floating point maths; RISC chips are very good at FPM.

i'll 2nd, or 3rd?-that multitasking reference. granted my desktop is not loaded w/ memory, but when i was waiting for my extra 512MB to show up for my iBook i was fully capable of multitasking while encoding video w/ the stock 256MB of RAM, yet on my desktop noted in my sig, windows grinds to a near halt w/ 512MB. so again, speed is relative. P4s are likely better than PMs @ multitasking in light of their hyperthreading, and my iBook multitasks better than any P4 machines i've worked w/, so go figure.

If you can hold out, wait for tiger. It should, hopefully, be out this month.