New to the Mac World

[Londonboi2k3]

Hi guys, I will be going down to the store in a few hrs to buy the Ibook 14" I have a few questions i would like to ask, the out come of the answers wont stop me from buying the mac as this is something i have wanted to do for ages.

Anyways comming from a Windows/Linux back ground i have a few questions;

1) will any of my usb hardware from my PC work with OS X I.e My Webcam? or do i need to buy a mac specific webcam?

2) I know i cant run Windows software without purchasing the Software that allows this (Virtualy PC) BUT how about BSD software or Linux Software, can these be ported over to Linux since i understand that the base of Mac is BSD (why i have chosen to buy a mac now)

3) What about all my existing MP3 MPEGs etc, Can i just copy them over?

4) Web design, now this one i am stuck on, what do i use for web design?

5) Programming, I know there are the unix tools on the command line for programming, but are there any visual tools, I.E. Like Visual C++

6) Nothing eles

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions
Londonboi

 

[Veldek]

1) I tend to say yes, but if the webcam has special software, then this software won’t work, of course.
2) Already compiled software won’t run, because of the different architecture (PPC vs. x86), even if it was made for BSD.
3) Of, course!
4) There are some apps out there, but I’m no expert on this, so I let someone else answer this.
5) There’s Xcode from Apple. I think it can do C++.

 

[stromie952]

Regarding #2:

Many of the popular linux apps are ported to the os x/darwin system and can be used in apple's x11. also, many things can be compiled if they support bsd so give things a shot. for a good reference and a very good source for ported software use fink.

http://fink.sourceforge.net/

 

[stromie952]

For #4:

Depends on what how you want to do things. You could use BBEdit which is the most popular text editor for html and other coding on the Mac. Or if you already know and love a Linux text editor for html you can use one of those like emacs. Or you could spring for Macromedia Dreamweaver MX or GoLive. I'm sure there are also different free software versions of web design programs as well. Check versiontracker and other mac software websites to see if there are any that fit your needs.

 

[FightTheFuture]

for webdesign, there's also rapidweaver $29.95 if you just want to do some basic webpage templates.