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These are definitely the awesome laptops Apple should have made. I just really don't want to give up macOS. I've literally put this thing back and forth into my cart, twenty times by now. But there is just too much I'm giving up environment wise. Either I go with Windows, and lose unix, or I go Linux, and lose everything but unix. That's why MacOS works for me, and I'm sure others. It's what Linux should have been by now, a hybrid Windows/Unix experience. Apple is really pissing me off, forcing me even to contemplate this.

I KNOW Linux isn't Unix.

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> Either I go with Windows, and lose unix

The Linux layer on Windows 10 is quite functional. Of course, this suggestion presumes both that you're OK with Windows as a replacement for macOS for non-dev stuff and that you don't have an immediate need for the handful of things not yet supported by the WSL, but if both of those are true, it might be worth looking into.

I can vouch for WSL being great. You can even get GUI apps to work perfectly using VcXsrv.

Eh. The first thing I tried to do was run a Webpack build for my pet project, ran into the uv_interface bug [1], got annoyed fast by the lack of terminal features cmd.exe has always been infamous for, and quickly lost interest.

[1] https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues/468

And tbh: money is not the issue. I don't like the 'apple tax' but they are comfortable wayyyyyy up in their trees... and macOS / iOS dev env is leverage.

I'm on the same boat. Except I have a chromebox as guinea pig.

I've seen people reporting this transition as a 'surprisingly good experience'. So here's my 2 cents on a 30 minute run (amount of time it takes me to setup a new macbook):

1password: there are options, but omg it just works...

xrandr: I knew things would get hairy when I found myself looking up how to dual monitor + rotate on i3wm

fonts: I don't know what it is, but seems different

I know your experience will vary from distro to distro, but that is exactly the point: it's hard to find that happy place.

I'm sure that sticking to certain distro, under certain hardware, things will go fine. But that at point I ask myself: Sooo... this seems similar to mac ecosystem, why not pay the apple tax and move on?

I don't think 2017 will be the year of linux on the desktop (or any other prophecy along those lines), but for sure it will be 'the year I reconsidered linux on the desktop'.

The Linux experience I saw so far would be enough for me to be productive with some known rough edges that I can either help fix or report.

Worst case scenario I get a macbook pro during the fall update ;)

> xrandr: I knew things would get hairy when I found myself looking up how to dual monitor + rotate on i3wm

I had a Dell XPS 13 connected to a Dell monitor running the stock Dell Ubuntu distro and still had to use arandr with config files when I switched from desk monitor to laptop to conference room.

This was a known issue a couple years ago. Maybe it's resolved now.

> But there is just too much I'm giving up environment wise.

I was a few years Linux, few years MacOS and now back to Arch Linux and loving it. The only thing that really does not have good Linux alternative is adobe illustrator.

I NEED Unibox App, and Capture One, and Arq, and 1password, and XCode and and and. Too much software I use on Mac. Linux just isn't a desktop OS in my opinion.

Runs fine under wine I think.

Running fine under WINE actually means moderately stable with many issues.

What do you mean by "lose everything"? You don't need to use pre-installed Ubuntu. Any distro should work OK, choose the one that works better for you. I wouldn't trade experience of something like KDE Plasma 5 to MacOS or Windows. If you mean some applications that are available on MacOS only - that can be a different story.

Windows 10 offers a linux subsystem based on ubuntu. I'm not sure if it's still in beta at this point.

I tried this recently with some success. However, there were some things that I didn't manage to get working (ghq for example). I look forward to seeing improvements as it matures.

I can't speak for this generation, but I have a previous-gen XPS 15 (or a current-gen, depending on how you look at it, since the Kaby Lake stuff isn't entirely out yet) and Linux runs on the normal Windows edition just fine, with the exception that I swapped out the wireless for an Intel card on the advice of a coworker. I'm not sure if that will still apply to this gen since ISTR they come with an Intel wireless either way, though if that matters to you, check first. (Still, new wireless cards are quite cheap on Amazon ~$20, and easy to replace, if it suits you.)

Of course, dual booting comes with its own issues. But I pretty much just game in Windows.

Elaborate. What do you think you'll miss switching from OS X to Linux?

Ease of use... stability, passing 6 months w/o having to deeply debug some system issue...

Stability is a concern but it's notable that this machine is running a recent long-term support version of Ubuntu so shouldn't need any TLC in the short term.

Ease of use is very subjective and can't really argue with what people are used to. I do know that from a physical point of view that Linux lets me configure a mouse to not give me RSI.

1. Ease of use I can give you. That being said, Linux for me is way easier to use than OS X or Windows so I think that's relative.

2. I'm sorry but I really can't agree with you at all about stability. Linux is incredibly stable, especially on a laptop designed for Linux. Linux on a MacBook, sure, it's awful. A Network manager update completely stopped my ability to connect to the internet and I had to downgrade it and prevent it from updating for a bit.

On my XPS? Not a single issue, and I'm on an "unstable" distribution.

I think that if there isn't some software that you absolutely need that has no Linux alternative then you should really give it a shot.

It's not like that anymore. What stability? What have you had to deeply debug lately with a laptop that has known or supported linux.

What am I missing? It looks like it is priced much higher than the MBP, and aside from a more appropriately priced TB SSD and ports (yes, Apple f'd this up short term), I'm not seeing what makes it better.

I priced an XPS 15 against a MBP 2016 recently, both pretty maxed out (fastest CPU, 1TB SSD, 32GB RAM on the Dell + 4K touch screen), and the Dell came to $2,500 compared to $3,400 for the MBP. Seems pretty competitive.

What's getting in the way of buying the XPS 13 and dual-booting it in order to have it both ways?

Sure, you couldn't use both at the same time, but that seems like it'd take care of most (of at least my) use cases.

Neither of those are MacOS, and honestly if I'm not going to use it, I'm going to use Windows 10. Then at least I'm not software limited, and it's multi-use.

You'll probably need a larger hard disk to accommodate both operating systems if you dual boot. I prefer to run virtualbox/vmware and have both running side by side while using the best tools/software on each platform.

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