Can I use an Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server as a development machine for multiple people?

Question

We are a Microsoft shop with C++ experience looking to get into some iPhone/iPad development.

Before we make a large investment in individual development machines, we would like to test our abilities with a modest investment.

Can we use one Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server as a development machine for 2-3 concurrent users? We would want them to remote from their PCs into the Mac Mini server and develop remotely.

Is this possible?

Pitch

You will probably get a better audience for this question on serverfault.com. – Conlon

Answer 1

It sounds like you're about to break Joel's "Don't torture your developers" rule.

Skimping on hardware is a good way to waste expensive developer time, which will lead to unhappy developers and failed projects.

Since a Mac with a Windows license can be turned into a Windows development machine, you could buy Macs instead of generic Windows PCs as your existing development hardware hits its replacement dates, and have the flexibility to do either Windows or Mac development.

I think it's worth re-evaluating this initiative as to whether there's enough commitment behind it to make it succeed.

Eimile

Hey, I thought these Macs were supposed to be so powerful... can't handle two part time developers. :) No flame-wars... I'm only kidding... and I agree with Joel's rule so much my developers have better machines than Joel's developers. ;)... but their office is not as nice. We all aren't making a fortune you know. ;) – Pitch

I hope your Windows developers appreciate the nice PCs for their C++ work. iPhone development can't hurt a career, but how keen will they be to do it on half a Mac Mini? If you understand the value of investing in machines for Windows development, what's so different about the iPhone/iPad project? – Eimile

Just to hammer the point home, because I've seen under-investment kill too many good projects, what do your developers use at home to slashdot/tweet/facebook/SO? From a hard-nosed capitalist point-of-view, if it's more powerful than half a Mac Mini, what do they need you for? I'm not trying to be argumentative, I mean that as a genuine question. It's better to understand the consequences of your decisions before you make them. Good luck with your project, whatever you decide to do. – Eimile

One more question - do you have a local Apple store that could help you with a demonstration of the capabilities of OS/X for hosting multi-user development? – Eimile

The developers our outside of the country. Hardware is taxed at 50% to bring in. Apple machines are generally sold for 2x the cost of in the US. The machines they use for development are far greater than anything they are used to. The machines they have at home are, in most cases, machines from 7-10 years ago. I agree with everything you say... if 3 months into the project it works out, they would get their own computer. This is an experiment, not a project. Thank you. – Pitch

Answer 2

Not out of the box. Mac OS X server is not designed for multiple concurrent desktop access users like a Windows Terminal Server. Edit Here is a product that will do that. http://www.aquaconnect.net/

The Mac Mini is not any major power house either. Emulating the iPhone would not be feasible either since (at last I knew) all Mac Mini's were dual core.

Unclench

I'm sorry, what's your point here with the "dual core"? I mean, I have a C2D MacBook, 2GHz, 2GB RAM, and the iPhone simulator runs much faster than either my iPhone 3GS or my iPod Touch. The only problem I can see is you'd wait a bit longer when compiling. – Sextant

My point is that if they are sharing the machine w/ multiple remote clients. – Unclench

WTF does that have to do with the iPhone Simulator, though? – Educated

Say one thread for os, one thread for simulator. Multiply that by 3. Not very efficient on a dual core machine. – Unclench

Answer 3

That is a very interesting question which I do not know the answer to, but I will still be cheeky and post a reply. The cheapest Mac Mini is $599 and Mac OS X Server costs $499 so it might be worth just buying two Mac Minis for an additional cost of $100.

I do hope someone here has experience of a similar setup to what you have in mind.

Mote

FWIW - There is a 'souped-up' Mini with OS X Server bundled for $999. Has 2x memory and 6x disk compared to the $599 entry-level model. – Straitjacket

Answer 4

A Mac Mini isn't enough oomph to do that; it's basically a low-end laptop, after all. You could do it with aquaconnect and an XServe, but it might be cheaper just to buy some KVMs and a few Mac Minis and give the developers one each.

Kweisui