reevesAstronomy: MacBook Pro with OS X, Vista, Linux

In a few months, I plan on buying a laptop computer. This computer will be for astrophotography, games, work, computer fiddling, programming, and casual internet surfing/emailing.

I've put a good deal of research into this and I've came up with a great idea: A MacBook Pro (picture below) with a suite of operating systems.

My laptop will run on an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.4Ghz or more (depends on price at the time of purchase), will have 3 or 4 GB of RAM (600mhz or faster), a NVidea graphics card with at least 256MB of VRAM. Depending on money, I will either get a 15 inch monitor or a 17 inch (more money, extra USB port). Most likely I will get the 15 inch which features a full keyboard, multi-touch trackpad, wireless, etc. For more details check out: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html

Below is a labelled image showing all of the ports feature on the MacBook Pro. Please note that there are only two USB 2.0 ports on the 15 inch model (Click for a bigger image view).

Tech Specs at a glance:

Specifications

Accessory Kit
MacBook Pro 15[17] -inch Glossy Widescreen Display
2.4[2.6]GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
200GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB

(in the "[]" are the specs I hope to get if I can afford to get them)

My operating system for my sexy MacBook Pro will be the best OS available on a Mac: Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". I will use the "Boot Camp" feature in Mac to create partitions for Windows Vista Home Premium (possibly Ultimate) and Linux (Most likely PC Linux '07 from a home-made liveCD disk).

But rebooting is annoying and takes time! Isn't there a way to run them simultaneously, side-by-side?

Yes, it's called a Virtual Machine program. Two prominent programs are Parallels 3.0 and VMware Fusion 1.0 (2.0 will be released in a few months). I've heard so much praise for VMware fusion and so much criticism for Parallels that first thing I'll do when I get Vista, will be to try the trial of VMware Fusion. If it's good, I'll go for it.

Any criticisms, advice, or ideas? Leave a comment and I'll try to make sure I read it.

Here are a few pics of the desktop of the OS's I will be using on my laptop:

Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" image showing the Dock and Mac Finder.