Do you depend on non-"native" Mac programs?

Wed, 2008-05-07 13:58 — ghutchis

Instruments

Sadly, many of the instruments I use in my lab require WIndows software. A few suppliers have switched to Java, but the rest either require WIndows drivers or full-scale Windows applications.

Wed, 2008-05-07 14:51 — cparnot

Same here, but anyway the instruments need their own computer, so I don't know if I would count that as a need for non-native Mac programs. It would not make much difference if those machines could be plugged to a mac.

Wed, 2008-05-07 15:11 — goatbar

All of the above...

I need X11, Linux, Windows, and soon OpenSolaris for my work. Apple's X11 still needs major work, especially on laptops when you plug in a 2nd monitor while it is running. Where would I be without VMWare Fusion?

Wed, 2008-05-07 15:57 — vgweirs

Many of the above

Most of what I code has to run on other *nixes. I also need X11. Finally, I need at least MS office apps and Entrust, and while I use them as little as possible, I can't escape using them daily; so that doesn't require Windows per se, but interaction with highly Windows-centric apps.

Wed, 2008-05-07 16:03 — AtomHammer

Drivers

I'm in the same boat. Some instrument drivers, even some simple stuff, can only be operated from Windows. Worse, specific versions of the Windows panoply are necessary.

Wed, 2008-05-07 23:13 — peawee03

Old Software and clustering

Well, my first gripe is some ancient DOS software that is just too scary to re-write. I'm actually re-writing the model instead to use something like NetCDF, instead of this crusty support software. I have to keep a copy of DOSBox around to use it, and it's starting to get annoying.

In addition, Intel's V-Tune is *really* handy. Unfortunately, it's not offered for the Mac platform.

Thu, 2008-05-08 11:32 — bryanc

A few instrument companies seem to be waking up...

...but almost all the instrumentation available runs on windows-only software. I make a point about complaining vociferously about this, and I was pleased to discover that the company we just bought a fluorescent plate reader from has just released an OS X native version of their software.

But our real-time PCR and confocal software both require windows, so I run them under parallels on the iMac in the lab.

Thu, 2008-05-08 11:42 — wgallin

Multiple Platform Needs

The electrophysiology equipment that I use requires Windows, as does a lab robot that I use. I would prefer to use Mac native stuff, or at least Unix apps that would run on the Mac. The Mac X11 seems to work well for the STADEN sequence assembly software and EMBOSS code.

Thu, 2008-05-08 18:08 — flip

CAD

There are, sadly, a few CAD and DataAq programs we use that are Windows only. On the plus side, a MacPro w/ 8gb runs Windows x64 quite nicely in BootCamp and we're able to get our work done relatively easily.

Fri, 2008-05-09 18:11 — ajcarr

XRD software

Alas, very little X-ray diffraction software is available natively for OS X, so I have to work under Parallels (prior to the shift to Intel it was far worse: I had to try to run number-crunching code under Virtual PC and pretend that I had a 386 for all the speed I was seeing). Apple really must try to engage the Science and Engineering communities and try to get people to port their code to OS X (I'd even be happy for it to run under X11).

Alun

Fri, 2008-05-09 21:45 — m_argote

The vote should allow more

The vote should allow more than one option. For example, I need X11 for astronomical research, but for teaching purposes many apps used in our university are for Windows and the transition is still slow in the education front...

Sat, 2008-05-10 04:22 — jlobato

MATLAB

Yes, I use matlab and it uses X11. Please mathworks do your job.!

Sun, 2008-05-11 13:06 — pax131

Environmental Engineering

Lots of my modeling work requires MATLAB as well as additional programs which are only available for Windows. These include:

-CAD Programs
-Interfaces/GUIs for USGS models
-GIS Programs

Mon, 2008-05-12 09:01 — mfredrickson

Command line == native mac

I was going to vote for "a few command-line programs" but I realized there is a fallacy in this poll: the command line is Mac native. OS X's BSD heritage is what has kept me on macs since its release. I was right about to switch to Linux for good when OS X came out, and it won me back to the platform (though to be fair at the time, I had a G4 running Linux, so I was hedging my bets).

A better poll might be comparing OS X GUI vs. X11 on OSX vs. command line on OSX vs. cmd linux vs. X11 linux vs. Windows.

Wed, 2008-05-14 13:29 — sveiki

Database Contracts

I do freelance database application contracting, and some clients use Access. In a future move to SQL server, I may no longer need to use Access, but until then...

Fri, 2008-05-16 10:06 — cej38

terminal vs. x11

I switched to Mac because I was looking for a better user experience than I was having working on a linux machine, but I still needed all of the *nix stuff. Mac has been a great fit. I use X11 is for connecting to a particular remote unix machine (which for some reason it doesn't play nicely with terminal) and for the page down command when looking at a really large document in vi. For all of my other command-line stuff terminal works just fine.

I use a windows machine every so often when I need to run Materials Studio or Gaussview. I would really like to have both of these programs as native mac.

Fri, 2008-05-16 14:15 — ghutchis

Re: GaussView

But GaussView is a native Mac application:

http://gaussian.com/gvm_req.htm

I can even confirm that Gaussian runs great on Mac. The current Gaussian 03.E01 runs nicely on my Intel Xserve cluster.

Mon, 2008-06-16 09:49 — hohonuuli

Java, Java, Java

We use a lot of home grow Java code.

Fri, 2008-06-27 23:04 — robrye

what is non-"native" from the command line?

Alright. I answered yes, I use command-line programs. Then I read the comments and they got me thinking. Most of the command-line programs I use are not native to Mac, in the sense that they were written on something else and were originally written to run on something else. So, in that sense they are not native. However, several of them run better on the Mac than they did on the machines on which they were written.

So, if what you mean by non-"native" is that they don't run through the Mac OS X GUI, then yes, I rely heavily on non-"native" programs. Much of my research relies on numerical models written in Fortran. The original versions of these models were written on Sun machines of various flavors and vintages. That suggests I do depend on non-"native" programs. On the other hand, part of the point of the Mac these days is that one can run such programs, as well as MySQL, various other programming languages, mediawiki, and just about anything else you can think of, through the Unix side of the house and never really leave the Mac environment (I don't really use XCode).

Tue, 2008-08-19 11:30 — rene

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