PC Crashed Looking For Recommendation on New System
PC Crashed Looking For Recommendation on New System
My PC Dell Windows 10 PC crashed last night. It's the only development environment I had. I'm looking for recommendations on a new machine.
I want to do FMX cross-application stuff. I've heard several people have a Mac setup with virtual windows to run Delphi. This sounds very useful for a cross-application development system. Please give me your recommendations for what type of Mac machine along with the hardware and software specs I would need.
Thank you.
My PC Dell Windows 10 PC crashed last night. It's the only development environment I had. I'm looking for recommendations on a new machine.
I want to do FMX cross-application stuff. I've heard several people have a Mac setup with virtual windows to run Delphi. This sounds very useful for a cross-application development system. Please give me your recommendations for what type of Mac machine along with the hardware and software specs I would need.
Thank you.
If you are considering FMX development for iOS, OS/X and Windows, then I would opt for a Mac Mini. It is the cheapest way to get into a Mac. Just make sure it has 16Gb RAM and a couple SSDs (you can buy a basic model and upgrade it yourself to save $$). If you need a laptop, then I would be tempted to get an entry level Mac Mini and buy a Windows laptop. The combined price will likely be less than getting a Mac laptop.
ReplyDelete16gb and dual SSDs. i5 for budget. i7 for performance.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me! I've published confidential data.
ReplyDeleteVery important the external disk for backup of the Virtual Machines and the folder with documents, photos, music and other things you want to save in case of a crash.
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/photos/...
Now without the serial number of the machine. :)
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/photos/...
A larger iOS app can take several minutes to build in Delphi, so I upgraded my computer to the processor with the fastest single core performance (since Delphi cannot use multiple cores). That reduced the build time of our app from 9 minutes to 3 minutes :-D
ReplyDelete(later I found that I could reduce the debug information in the build, which reduced the build time further down to 1.5 minute).
Michael Riley I am using Lenovo w540 i7 as laptop with flash disk. Very fast compilations !!!! very satisfy.
ReplyDeleteshlomo abuisak Same as mine! 32Gb + 2x512Gb SSDs
ReplyDeleteMacbook pro + parallels VM Windows 10. Runs fast like hell...
ReplyDeleteWindows VM starting faster then OSX native on macbook. Very easy to debug osx programs. FMX i do not use todays...
Firstly, mac and PC effectively use all the same components except for some tiny bios differences. The main problem with a mac is the lack of a proper keyboard containing critical high speed coding keys like page up/down/home/end/delete without using hard to type multi-key sequences. If you do a lot of coding and are a fast typist this will slow you down a lot. If not, you may not care. Apart from this you can run OSX as a virtual machine on a windows PC, or Windows as a virtual machine on a Mac, or even boot a mac natively using BootCamp into Windows and then switch to OSX. What works for you will be a matter of preference.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal how do you have 2x512Gb. I have just 512Gb and could not increase the size. Is it possible?
ReplyDeleteI have 46G left. using external drive
Two thoughts. First, I've been using VM on a Mac for nearly 10 years now for my personal stuff, and VM on Windows for work stuff for half that time. I like working inside of a VM mainly because it can run faster then working in a native WIndows machine because you don't need any anti-virus and security crap running. (Just don't use it for visiting sites on the web you're not familiar with!) I get faster builds inside my VM than on my Windows host machine!
ReplyDeleteI have come to prefer VirtualBox VM to the others. I started out using Parallels, switched to VMWare Fusion on Mac, and finally to VirtualBox last year. Not only is it free, but it's easy to move your VM files between platforms: WIndows <--> MacOS. I don't know if Parallels lets you do that now or not, and VMWare had problems whenever I tried.
Second, if you're going to buy a Mac, hold off until after their announcement later this month. I don't know what's going on, but I have never seen such a long and steady stream of discounted products being offered by Apple resellers as we've seen since mid-August. They seem to be trying to flush out their entire distribution network of inventory. They do this every year prior to announcing new stuff, but this is unusual. I think they're going to introduce something new that they know will cause people to stop buying older models, so they want to get as much of their inventory flushed out ASAP. After that, I bet they'll be cutting the prices on "older" stuff significantly (ie., anything older than the new generation).
I use a MacBook Pro, and I mostly just keep it closed and use it as if it's a desktop. I'm looking forward to getting a new Mac Mini so I can use my laptop as a laptop again. I don't like plugging and unplugging everything from it, mainly because it messes up the desktop layout.
Also, I've run into a lot of devs who hate the new Macs that have that "smart strip" above the keys on the kbd. It removes the Function keys. Sorry, as a developer, I like having real keys there. However, I mostly use an external kbd, so in a way it doesn't matter. But if I had to use the laptop itself, I wouldn't like it.
shlomo abuisak I have no optical drive.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal Instead i see.
ReplyDeleteDavid Schwartz David Schwartz David I’m sorry but there is no way that what you say about performance inside virtualbox is true. Virtualbox is by no means one of the better hypervisors and if you experience better speeds inside a virtual machine than natively you have one messed up configuration or terrible virus scanner. You will always achieve better performance natively and especially with disk io and latency that is very important during Delphi builds
ReplyDeleteAndrew Pratt
ReplyDeleteI use this approach of a Virtual Machine (VMWare) over a Mac OS since at least 5 years. With a team of 5 developers.
The five previous years in a great project with 44 developers in my charge, I adopted this approach too, in this case, VM windows over the native Windows. In this case to save time in case of a crash.
I a programmer destroy his working machine (VM) we deploy newly the original image with the development environment ready to work.
He/she, only need to recover the current working branch from the code repository and start to work again.
But, the importance in both cases is that I have the opportunity to check continuously that the performance of the Windows running inside a VM is ever better than in the native mode.
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Why? Really I don't care about the causes. I use this advantage every day. I like it. I constate it. But I don't make questions with no answers to the universe.
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I've used, on Mac, Parallels. Currently, I'm using VMWare fusion. In one of my customers, I've used VirtualBox (Windows over Windows). Everyone works very well.
Juan C. Cilleruelo To be fair I wasn't arguing that it isn't faster to restore a development environment from an image, I was saying it is impossible for compile times or IDE performance to be faster in a virtual machine. IDE performance perhaps might be faster if you've disabled visual effects or something, but there is not a single situation where a virtual machine can be faster than the core machine its effectively defying physics. We performance test every virtual and physical machine in our distributed cloud of servers & pc's and a virtual machine has never processed a task faster than the core machine. I also think its very dangerous to be running a machine that produces code without any virus protection. If a virus slips into your compiled binary your company will be done for. I've never had any major performance issues with ESET.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Pratt
ReplyDeleteYou present your experience and I present my experience.
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Is what have the experiences, everyone has one.
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I do not say that is more rapid in the restoration of the development environment, I said that ALWAYS is more rapid.
In any case, in any situation.
I'm going to repeat for you!
"But, the importance in both cases is that I have the opportunity to check continuously that the performance of the Windows running inside a VM is ever better than in the native mode."
"Eppur si muove" (Galileo)
Juan C. Cilleruelo I'm presenting facts, you are presenting some faulty research. Either you aren't comparing the same operating system, you have different software configurations between virtual and physical or you have a faulty hardware driver. If none of these things are true, your test that compares performance is faulty or the location of your files is different during the two builds. Do some research on the extra overheads required by the different types of hyper-visors and then you'll understand why they can't be faster apples to apples.
ReplyDeleteI've spoken of about 49 builds. Not only two.
ReplyDeleteIn 49 different machines, in 49 different status.
I've spoken about experiences.
Who made continuous conjectures about our installations are you. Not me.
No one of the 49 cases explained has made tests about this things. But all of them has experimented day to day that this form of work is better. B.E.T.T.E.R!
What you can do is mount the next cases:
- A VMWare with windows over a windows machine.
- A VirtualBox with Windows over a Windows machine.
- A VMWare with Windows over a Mac OS machine.
- A VirtualBox with Windows over a Mac OS machine.
- A Parallels with Windows over a Mac OS machine.
Install Delphi or Visual Studio on the virtual machines and on the host machines.
Pass over all your tests and publish them.
Don't make more conjectures, please!
"Eppur si muove" (Galileo)
To determine performance, run passmark.com.au - PassMark PerformanceTest - PC benchmark software on both the native and virtual machine. You'll find something like VirtualBox is one of the slowest hypervisors available because most of the emulation is done in software. Products like HyperV or VMWare have support for more advanced tech like direct i/o and other intel virtualisation tech which make them faster. Happy to see your passmark scores that show that the VM's are faster :)
ReplyDelete"Eppur si muove" (Galileo)
ReplyDelete