For devs that do heavy Linux work (but have stuck with a Mac OS for GUI/app reasons), is it time to move (back) to Windows? If so, what would be a good laptop to get at the moment?
I'm personally using a Dell XPS 13 (2014), soldered in RAM, but I did buy an ultraportable and 8GB is more than sufficient to do my all my personal work on. Work supplied me with a Lenovo W540 that is substantially more flexible, but it weighs as much as a couple bricks and I usually just leave it at home on the dock.
And it's pretty damn light for a 15" laptop. Easily one-handable (I think it's like 2 pounds IIRC).
And what's great is that you can crack it open and replace stuff - I swapped out the hard drive and replaced a malfunctioning battery myself with just a torx screw driver (super tiny torx, but still, no glue or special tools or anything).
It was pretty expensive - like $1900 IIRC. You're paying for the high res screen, better build quality, and thinness/lightness. But it's still like $500+ less than an equivalent macbook.
Why not just use Linux? It has a GUI. It has apps. It does everything a modern desktop or laptop needs to do. It really is great.
I would LOVE to ditch OS X and run Linux on it, only problem is NO DISTRO supports latest hardware. There are always things that don't work and it gets tiring.
I tried to run Ubuntu on my old Dell Laptop... there would always be some issues related to graphics card, wifi or some shit, overheating, battery drain... or something not working. At the end, had to go for Windows with Ubuntu on vagrant boxes and Desktop Ubuntu in Virtualbox.
Then on my new Macbook Pro, I wanted to run Ubuntu 14.04... but of course, so many things don't work... like right clicking on the touch pad, WiFi or such simplest of features you'd expect to be supported in such widely available and pretty standard hardware... but NOPE. So, it's vagrant and Virtualbox running mostly Ubuntu on OS X again. I am actually considering installing Windows and running Linux on a VM inside it.
Not long ago Microsoft schemed to stomp out Linux and now they've had a change of heart? Fuck Microsoft! To this day even they engage in anti-competitive bundling with OEMs, not to mention their seedy history in relation to open source.
I'm surprised to hear someone preferring macbooks cooling though, my macbook always gets so hot relative to other laptops
If I were buying a Windows machine, the only one I would consider is the Microsoft Surface Book.
Although, in my opinion, I wouldn't trust any laptop hardware company out there enough to use the system that came pre-installed with it, but that's for another discussion.
There was also the Lenovo Solution Center problem. And the Lenovo BIOS shenanigans (or was it the Lenovo Service Engine?).
There have just been too many lapses in judgement at Lenovo. Either their competence is slipping or their ethics are. Either way, I'm done with them for now.
What? The M3800 had terrible battery life under Windows and it was even worse under Linux.
Every year I try a switch to Linux desktop. This year I made it as far as trying to get multiple monitors working well. I also dabbed in gaming. In the end I went back to my work=Mac game=Windows duopoly.
A GNU userland. A plethora of tiling window managers. A selection of clean terminals. Every single thing Debian's or Arch's repos offer which one must turn to brew for.
And of course there's freedom too, which is nice.
> Every year I try a switch to Linux desktop. This year I made it as far as trying to get multiple monitors working well.
I've got multiple monitors running on Linux, over HDMI, at home & at work, at differing resolutions & orientations. I use arandr-configured xrandr scripts which set my desired orientation with a quick keystroke in my window manager. What more does one need?
Freedom, a full GNU userland, proper package management of the entire system, plethora of CLI programs which can fulfil your every need and only really work on GNU/Linux, configurable, etc.
> Every year I try a switch to Linux desktop. This year I made it as far as trying to get multiple monitors working well. I also dabbed in gaming. In the end I went back to my work=Mac game=Windows duopoly.
I use multiple monitors every day for my work under OpenSUSE and Arch. They both worked with either minimal (Arch) or no (SUSE) configuration. I use DisplayPort which works pretty well.
Better Desktop environment Better Package Management More Up to date packages
Some of my knowledge of OS X is likely outdated I haven't used it since 2011
I started using Linux when I was at University late 90's early 00's (Mandrake was my first distro). I switched to OS X around 2005 and used it as my primary operating system for about 5 years.
I used OS X because I'd purchased a MacBook Pro (mostly for the hardware) I still think Macbooks are the nicest laptops I've used to this day I went through 3 iterations of Macbooks before I stopped using OS X. I used OS X because it was good enough but I never fell in love with it.
I absolutely hated the desktop environment, silly things like no ability to customise anything, lack of workspaces, having to hit command q to kill application (because the 'x' button wouldn't close them properly) stuff like that. Workspaces came in a later OS X update which addressed some of my gripes.
It was never easy to install third party packages and libraries in OS X. I think this has improved now, when I used OS X it it was a mess (especially compared to the ease of something like apt). The native system packages were always really ancient - old version of GCC, old version of emacs, python etc. Trying to install newer version of these 'default' packages was not straightforward at all I remember having huge issues getting python 3 working.
Nowadays I run Fedora very happy with it. Not compelled at all to switch back. Linux support for modern laptops is a lot better than it was when I first started using Macs.
My current job is in an 'enterprisey' environment I'm forced to use a locked down version of windows here. Almost anything would be better.
The whole python ecosystem is also better on Linux overall.
Anything strictly desktop-oriented is better on OSX of course.
I use Mac OS X and this is what I miss about Linux:
- Clean package/software management and updates.
- Basic customizability without having to install 3rd party binaries from untrusted sources
- Multiple filesystem support (NTFS write not supported out of the box... needing 3rd party software... ext support has to be compiled, breaks with updates... generally PITA)
- Easy installation of software/libraries from source (generally PITA to set up toolchain to compile general cross platform open source software)
- Proper desktop environment (the one that OS X has is shit compared to Gnome)
- Proper file manager (the one that OS X has is shit compared to Nautilus)
- Up to date and standard command-line tools (The ones in OS X are old... for example check the version of unzip... they can't unpack zip files created by new zip tool)
- Better command line system wide file search (I love mlocate, the one in OS X is shit)
- Ability to run docker natively