What are some good message boards about OS X and using fileshares and peripherals on an existing network?

January 12, 2005 11:58 AM

MacPlungeFilter: I'm one of those "IPod users with a PC" who is thinking about taking the plunge to the other side by adding a Mac Mini to my home network. I don't want to clutter up AskMe with too much product-specific chatter, so my question is, where are some good message boards I can read to increase my knowledge, of Mac OS X in general and, in specific, what I will need to do to get the Mac to use fileshares and peripherals on my existing network. All the better if the denizens of the community are not hostile to incoming Windoze users.
posted by matildaben to computers & internet (17 comments total)

I find Mac OSX Hints very helpful. There's also Macslash, but that's more news-oriented. Neither of these are exactly what you're asking for, but the former does provide a good amount of "Getting X working with Y" hints.
posted by sohcahtoa at 12:01 PM on January 12, 2005

Check out the forums at Macosxhints. You'll find plenty of information there and also a good idea of all the cool things you can do with your Mac.
posted by spslsausse at 12:01 PM on January 12, 2005

I know you said message boards, but one site you should know about is MacWindows, which collects tips and tricks relevant to getting Macs and Windows machines to play nice together.
posted by jjg at 12:01 PM on January 12, 2005

Damn, I got beat by seconds!
posted by spslsausse at 12:02 PM on January 12, 2005

You might also visit Apple's Discussions board to search for answers to and to ask questions about your issues.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:24 PM on January 12, 2005

OSXFAQ has a pretty good forum.
posted by Hillman Cobs at 12:27 PM on January 12, 2005

MacMentor's tagline is "Mac users helping PC people switch."
posted by kirkaracha at 12:29 PM on January 12, 2005

This morning when I got out of bed, I hadn't even contemplated buying a Mac. My Mac Mini will be with me at the end of the month (!), so these links are most useful. Muchos gracias.
posted by TheDonF at 12:33 PM on January 12, 2005

All of those sites are great, but if you want INFORMATION more than rumors and pictures, Macintouch cannot be beat.
posted by pwb503 at 1:35 PM on January 12, 2005

The Ars Technica Macintoshian Achaia should meet your needs.
posted by kavasa at 2:25 PM on January 12, 2005

All the better if the denizens of the community are not hostile to incoming Windoze users.

FWIW, I've never seen any hostilty expressed towards a switcher on any forum. The hostility is reserved for those who try to insist Windows is better, without ever even trying a Mac.

That said, I'll recommend the forums at DealMac as a particularly friendly and helpful bunch, and the DealMac site in general as a great place to locate bargains.

Enjoy your new Mini!
posted by spilon at 3:19 PM on January 12, 2005

Email me. I've just switched, and I like to talk about it.
posted by armoured-ant at 9:59 PM on January 12, 2005

" what I will need to do to get the Mac to use fileshares and peripherals on my existing network."

By and large, nothing. You'll be able to mount Windows shares (and NFS) right out of the box and networked printers are a snap. Networked scanners might be a bit more complicated, since as far as I can tell there's no equivalent to TWAIN on OS X. Sharing files from the Mac requires a little more tweaking, because the old (and rather silly) "Public Folder"/"Drop Box" scheme that was used on ancient Macs has been preserved. You can manually configure Samba to get around this problem.

Remote Desktop/RDP sessions to Windows machines are easily done with a free client from Microsoft, and VNC works relatively well, too. If you have X clients you want to run remotely, there is an X server on the OS installation CD. If you have an in-house audio stream, the bundled audio player should work with them seamlessly, as do most of the third party players.

A certain portion of your existing software may be installable. Quite a few games from the mid to late 90s were "hybrid CDs", containing Macintosh versions of the software on the same disk as the Windows version. Blizzard titles (Warcraft 2 & 3, Diablo 1 & 2) are especially reliable in this respect.

Your removable media should by and large be mountable without problems. Exceptions are certain older USB storage devices that don't obey the USB Mass Storage specification, and parallel port devices.

VGA monitors should work fine once you get cabling sorted out. USB keyboards and pointing devices -- including those with more than one button -- should work fine (and in fact a non-Apple keyboard and mouse is probably preferable; modern Apple keyboards and mice are truly horrid), but your older PS/2 interface keyboards or serial mice won't work at all without extra hardware involved. Joysticks and gamepads will be useful only if they are USB. The Mac does not have a game port. MIDI devices will require you to have some additional hardware as well, for the same reason.

Despite its long legacy as the peripheral interconnect of choice on the platform, SCSI is no longer provided on the Macintosh, so if you have SCSI devices such as a tape drive, they can't be attached.

Yeah, I know you were hoping for pointers to answers, but it can't hurt to have the actual answers here, too.
posted by majick at 11:49 PM on January 12, 2005

Thanks guys. I too have been swept up in the mac-mini tornado, so have been worriedly trying to work out how I'm actually going to use it when it arrives. My observations.

Remote Desktop is here.
Support for open office is limited, but there is a 1.2 mac only variant to be found at neoOffice.
Copying files to ftp seems as simple as telling something called "finder" about the ftp site. Let's hope.
Screen captures are built into the operating system.
Python is built into the operating system, and there's also this weird thing called appleScript.

Firefox and thunderbird both work on osX, but I'm unable to find a way to port my email messages from thunderbird to macMail.

I'm looking forward to a couple of months of Apple Ask Noobie Madness.
posted by seanyboy at 9:03 AM on January 13, 2005

Thanks, all.

The main things I would like to do regarding networking would be:
a) use the Mac on my existing wireless network (NetGear router)
b) print from the Mac to USB printer hooked up to PC on network
c) Share files between the Mac and PC

I figure I have to get the Airport Extreme card put in the Mac, but I don't need an Airport base station because I already have the NetGear.

How does iTunes sharing work? Can I keep the library on one computer and play from it on either computer? Or, if I'm going to put the library on the Mac only, but the speakers are attached to the PC, do I have to buy a whole new set of speakers for the Mac?

Since I can't fit it into my budget for a few months anyway, I think I'll just wait for them to start shipping with Tiger so I don't have to upgrade.
posted by matildaben at 9:54 AM on January 13, 2005

How does iTunes sharing work? Can I keep the library on one computer and play from it on either computer? Or, if I'm going to put the library on the Mac only, but the speakers are attached to the PC, do I have to buy a whole new set of speakers for the Mac?

So long as you have both computers on the same local network, the iTunes traffic will flow between them just fine. This means you can view and play your iTunes library on the other computer, with the set of speakers connected to that other computer.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:20 AM on January 13, 2005

(a) will be fine. Install the wireless network card and you're good to go.

(b) should be fine. There are a metric crapload of printer drivers that ship with the OS, and remote printing is fairly straightforward to configure.

(c) will work out of the box.

"I think I'll just wait for them to start shipping with Tiger"

I suggest not doing so. First versions of each revision of OSX have been rather rough. It usually takes Apple about 3 - 6 months to stabilize a new OS rev. That said, if the Tiger features matter more than system stability to you, go for it.
posted by majick at 3:21 PM on January 13, 2005