<p>I was just wondering if any current student could tell me whether or not I could use a Mac on campus. I am thinking about buying a mac soon and I want to make sure its compatible. Also does duke offer any special offers with programs and discounts? Thanks!!!!</p>
<p>I've got a mac and it works fine. I think duke has one of the highest % of mac users. The only problem i've had was doing the econ homework on my mac, but there are computer clusters or the windows partition on the new macs. For comp sci at least, you'll need the windows partition... So keep that in mind.</p>
<p>will I need a PC for engineering? or will a mac work fine?</p>
<p>Yeah I'm doing engineering and planning on purchasing one of those Mac Book Pros. Is this the right decision/can it work? I think engineering uses Unix (?) a lot, but I know there are Unix clusters.</p>
<p>DukeEgr- Do you know of engineering students that use a Mac laptop?</p>
<p>Lot's o' folks use Macs - including my boss (Sr. Associate Dean for Education) and his boss (Dead Kristina Johnson). Actually, after my late, lamented Vaio crashed and burned I have been using my Mac for all things Duke. Any platform (including Linux) works great - you'll generally be doing work on the cluster computers, or through yourmachines on the cluster computers, and we've posted instructions on how to work on Windows</a> PCs and on [url=<a href="http://www.duiki.com/wiki/X11R6%5DMacs%5B/url">http://www.duiki.com/wiki/X11R6]Macs[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Good stuff, man. You gotta love Duiki.com...</p>
<p>A lot of the beginning engineering stuff is done through the school's Unix servers anyway, so it really doesn't matter PC or Mac. And yes, Duke does sell Macs at a discount, how much? Idk, but you might want to check out the Apple Education Discount and compare it with Duke's prices, sometimes getting it direct is cheaper.</p>
<p>How about software? does duke give you the necessary software or do you have to buy it?</p>
<p>The software for connecting to the clusters - for either system - is free for Duke students. Some other software is free, some is at a discount, and some costs an amazingly high amount at the bookstore - you just have to research purchases in advance. Note that OpenOffice, which will deal with most Office products, already exists on the clusters. Also, there is a list of site-licensed software available at: OIT's</a> Site Licensed SOftware List</p>