PixInsight on MacBook Air?

[Sean]

Does anyone have recent experience with running PI on a MacBook Air? Any comments or concerns? My MB Pro is 5 years old, and I need to replace it, and am trying to decide between a new MB Pro and a MB Air. The 4GB of RAM concerns me a bit on the Air - has anyone run into limitations with this memory restriction? My main computer is an iMac with 12GB of RAM, and I don't want to face too many restrictions on my new laptop.

Thanks,

Sean

[Jules]

Hi Sean

I am running PI on my Macbook air:

Processor Name:   Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:   1.8 GHz
Memory:   4 GB

I also run boot camp on the same machine for the SkyX, maxim DL etc.
I bought an external screen as the Macbook air screen IMO is too small to process properly with PI.

That is my only gripe, the SSD disc makes makes the machine a lot faster. The thunderbolt external hard drives are fast but are few and far between at the moment.

Regards

Julian

[Jack Harvey]

I believe the Macbook Pro is up for a new model this summer and the rumors are that it will be thinner and a bit more like the Air.  Actually the launch could be this month.
http://www.itworld.com/hardware/265022/macbook-air-style-macbook-pro-launch-april

[Sean]

Julian, thanks for the feedback. Have you ever tried driving an external projector through the Thunderbolt port with the HDMI adapter?

Jack, thanks for the heads up about a new MB Pro coming - that complicates my decision.  I need the new laptop by the end of April for an upcoming conference. This makes it hard to know what to do ...

Sean

[mschuster]

I also have a Macbook Air like Jules and run PI both in Mac OS X and Win7 via Bootcamp. I also use a 4TB Raid array via Thunderbolt on Mac OS. The read-only nature of the cross OS partitions is annoying. PI runs well on both OS's, maybe 10% faster on Mac. A 64 frame integration of 8mpixel subs (using winsorized sigma clipping) takes maybe 250 seconds on Win. IMO speed is fine with subs this size, 4GB seems OK, but more would be better clearly especially for bigger 16mpixel subs.

One annoying issue running in PI in Win7 is the Magic Mouse's touch sensitivity. Everything zooms way too easily IMO. I have not found any OS specific way to control sensitivity. My solution is autohotkey.com with a script that intercepts and destroys all emulated mouse wheel motions from the Magic Mouse. Win7 PI is unusable without some sort of hack like this, at least for me and my clumsy fingers.

Thanks,
Mike

[Jules]

Sean

The decision for me was one of portability. I had a 17" macbook pro which was a lovely machine but a bit of a hump.

The macbook air is great but seeing Jack's post I personally would wait to see what Apple are going to pull out of the hat.

I concur with Mike's post, the magic mouse is way too sensitive with the zoom.

Regards

Julian

[Jules]

Julian, thanks for the feedback. Have you ever tried driving an external projector through the Thunderbolt port with the HDMI adapter?

Jack, thanks for the heads up about a new MB Pro coming - that complicates my decision.  I need the new laptop by the end of April for an upcoming conference. This makes it hard to know what to do ...

Sean

No I have not used an external projector, interesting idea though.

Regards

Julian

[viktorbravo]

Sean, I've got the last model of the MBA, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of RAM, running 10.7.  PI runs fine, albeit a bit slow doing things like calibration, registration, and integration.  The real estate on the screen is of course lacking for image manipulation, but if I want to work on an image while I'm on the road, it serves its purpose.

[Lex]

Hi,

I think it is also better to install PI on a normal Laptop; the MB Airs are basically meant as a netbook and by that I think that there are not enough resources to run the soft properly.
Like already mentioned I think it can be cool to process some images over the clouds in a plane 

[Sean]

Well, I went ahead and bought the MacBook Air - got the i7 with 4GB of RAM, basically the fastest version available. I didn't want to buy a MacBook Pro with the new ones coming soon, plus the extreme portability of the Air appealed to me.

It's a great little machine, beautifully engineered, and so far PI seems to run very well. I think it will serve well for conferences and demos.

Sean

[Jules]

Sean

Nice one, they are lovely machines!

Regards

Julian

[Lex]

Yes, indeed it is lightweight. Cool that PI works well on your new machine.
Now we know it  8)