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Comment by dugmartin | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering with the (permanent?) switch to work from home if laptop sales will go down.

I've replaced both my personal and work laptops with System76 Meerkat mini PCs both running stock Unbuntu using Regolith for the desktop environment (https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat). They are stacked on top of each other on my desk and take up next to no space.

I work from home (and have since 1999) and don't travel for work (since Covid) so I have no need for laptops now. I have a larger monitor and for now I'm using an old USB switcher to share a wireless connection for my keyboard and mouse and use the input switcher on my monitor to switch between machines. In the future I may get an integrated hdmi/usb switch.

Has anyone else abandoned their laptops in favor of desktop/mini PCs?

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I haven't; i have an office with a screen, physical mouse and keyboard, but it still gets plugged into the laptop.

I can take the laptop to the kitchen, living room or garden if I so please. I can take it out of town or abroad. A desktop... I mean, i could take with me but not so easily.

But a laptop still gives you the option to go work in a park or a café. Anything taxing can be done on a remote server anyway so raw power hardly matters.

Personally I don't think I'll ever get a desktop setup.

I don't see the appeal of working in a café. It's like a noisy office, except you need to keep paying for your coffee. Might as well commute to the office where the coffee is part of the deal in my opinion.

If you only consider noisy cafés with bad drinks and loud people, sure, better not go there.

Bit some cafés are very quiet, have delicious drinks and food, good music and are (IMO) perfect for some light to mild-focused tasks.

How the hell are people able to work on a laptop for a long time? Laptops are incredibly non-ergonomic, you are bound to develop neck or back pain.

Get up and move around. Don't sit hunched over a laptop for hours.

For years I only used a laptop and I didn't really experience any of the issues you describe, I was very young though so that may have alleviated some potential issues.

I learned from experience that spending years at the same chair and desk can do even more damage. As part of my rehab, I switched to a laptop so I could move from couch to chair to table to standing desk easily. I also highly recommend using a motorized adjustable desk, now that goods ones are easily available and affordable. A perfectly customized height for sitting or standing is just a button push away, and I can use multiple monitors again.

There are manual height adjustable desks that can be set for near zero resistance moving up and down. They have a brake and an adjustable tension spring. I think those are the best ones. The only advantage (some) motorized ones have is the ability to remember presets.

The difference (for me) with a cafe is that it enables body doubling[0] without the threat of interruption.

So, for me, with my ADHD addled brain, I can be quite productive.

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/06/01/virtual-b...

As someone who also does this, I'm glad that there's a name for this phenomenon. :)

TIL

I do this and could never explain how I was more productive. I’ve always suspected I had ADHD and now I really want to get tested

I don’t know about other people, but the cacophony and background activity actually helps me focus. A lot of that is probably due to my attention deficit of course, but I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. In college I loved going to the floor of the library that had the most chatter and group projects happening (as you went towards the basement the rule was be quiet). It just helps crowd out the noise and distractions in its own way.

Without gaming I don’t think I would ever use a desktop or windows again.

Sorta. I like having flexibility and staying dynamic. I will often jump back and forth between my desk (M1 Mac mini) and my laptop (MacBook pro) to wander around my house on the couch or sometimes outside if the weather is nice.

Having your compute/dev take place on a separate box and using these machines as thin clients helps too. My personal machines are mostly just editors now, not running any hefty code processes.

Do you manage your own remote compute/dev or is it employer-provided?

lol in my country (south africa) we got blessed with 'load shedding'. i.e the state owned power utility Eskom, switch of our electricity for 2.5 hours up to x3 a day. As there is not enough capacity.

So one huge advantage of laptops are a)they run on batteries

b) If you do need to run the laptop of an inverter(i dare not say ups) its much easier to power for longer.

OOI, why System76 for those? As far as I can tell they're just off-the-shelf NUCs, and System76 are ~$200 more for a sensible spec than buying the NUC, some RAM and a good NVMe drive yourself.

How do you find them for noise? I had an 8th gen NUC that was unbearable under high CPU load - I replaced it with a slightly larger ASRock DeskMini X300 with Ryzen 5750GE and Noctua AM4 cooler that is silent, even under full load.

> OOI, why System76 for those?

Not the original poster, but +$200 would be reasonable for me.

The last computer I built was twenty years ago so I would have to do at least a couple hours of research to find out what sites and stores are reliable, read component reviews, etc. None of that information is useful or interesting to me beyond getting the computer up and running. And there's a slight chance that despite my best efforts I would make a mistake end up buying a collection of components that are incompatible, don't work optimally together, are back-ordered, or are missing drivers or something. Then I spend another couple hours on forums trying to get everything working.

On the other hand, for an extra $200 I can spend five minutes configuring a tested configuration that comes with tech support if something is wonky, and kicks a few bucks to people trying to support Linux.

Given the value I place on my free time the latter is significantly cheaper. If you already posses the expertise, enjoy that kind of work, or do not place a high monetary value on your time then the former might be cheaper.

Hm, that's fair enough for a more complex desktop build in my opinion (except for the unfortunate fact that you often end up with paying a premium for worse hardware that way), but in this case the NUC is an off-the-shelf standard barebone that is widely available - the only thing you are adding is RAM and storage. You can do both of those (for reasonable prices) via Crucial's part picker, for instance - and in fact that's what I based my $200 estimate on.

It feels like an odd target market for me considering I would expect people deliberately opting for Linux to already be more adept with that kind of thing - but maybe I'm wrong!

> I would expect people deliberately opting for Linux to already be more adept with that kind of thing - but maybe I'm wrong!

Yep, I think you’re just wrong. I know plenty of people who use Linux but have never built a PC and have no clue how to do so, and may never have even swapped out ram or disk drives.

I’m sure plenty of people also don’t know what a NUC is or where you would research which one to buy. You’re discounting the fact that you happened to know about the Crucial part picker, but most people don’t!

Some people use Linux because they grew up tinkering with computers, but a lot of people use them for other reasons, like greater familiarity with GNU command-line tools, or just not wanting to need a VM to run Docker.

I think the vast majority of people who build their own computer do so for gaming purposes and use Windows.

umanwizard already said what I would have said, but I will add a few points:

First, you may be underestimating the value of your expertise and the investment required.

Second, I'm glad we're not gatekeeping Linux as much as we used to.

Third, as I get older I find computer hardware less interesting. Just because someone likes to make music doesn't necessarily mean they like to make instruments.

I'm at an age and point in my career that paying $200 extra to not have to figure out what components to buy and assembling it is worth the money. I did have a Franken-desktop in my 20s that I upgraded a lot (from 386 through Pentium 2) but that was a long time ago.

I don't find the noise bad at all, but again, that may be my hearing going :)

I'd get that if it was a full desktop build, however in this case it's an off-the-shelf barebone that you plug two standard things into - but to each their own I guess.

Even better there are lots of new unused Lenovo 11th gen Intel mini PCs lurking on eBay for less than half the price. They have two RAM slots, SSD cradle and up to two NVMe slots and have vendor Linux certification out of the box.

I set one up last week for someone and it’ll drive two 4k displays fine. Granted that was under windows.

I'd pay the extra $200 if the manufacturer warranted Linux compatibility for 10 years (with a checklist of things like wake from sleep and connect to WiFi/monitor that work > 99.9% of the the time, or some other SLA).

It would also have to be silent.

I bought a MacStudio after years of being burned by Apples poor thermals. Turns out there’s basically zero advantage over the current MacBook Pro. Kind of wish I had just gotten the MBP so I could work on the couch or bring it on vacation, although my wife noted she was glad I didn’t have my laptop over the fourth this year.

Yeah, I think the M1 MacStudio was just establishing the form factor in anticipation of M2. Apparently, that requires a better thermal solution as the M2 MacBook Pro throttles much quicker than the previous generation.

I bought an M1 Max Mac Studio, and it ROCKS

I refuse to use laptops. They are not ergonomic, and by not using them I free my mind from work in more circumstances, which I consider to be a good thing.

(Using classic desktop Linux machines at work and at home)

>the (permanent?) switch to work from home

Don't know where you live but where I do (Austria) nearly all companies, big or small, have employees back into the office.

I never abandoned desktops for laptops (I use them only for travel), but many people don't have a dedicated office space at home so a laptop is their only real option.

I doubt laptop sales would go down.

It really depends on the use-case, and need for convenience. With a laptop (assuming it's not a desktop-replacement style brick) it's easy to use it in a lounge chair outside, or on a couch in the living room, or to take it over to a friend's house to show something.

Many people don't even use computing-intensive tasks.

So, I don't really see the switch to working at home really changing user preferences. I could be wrong, but we'll see.

It won't. I'm using laptops since early 2000.

Ability to take your computer to couch, bed, terrace, park, etc is irreplaceable.

I do wonder why desktops still exist.

I use my desktop because I like a 24" screen and full size keyboard, plus I don't have to think about battery levels. My desktop is old enough that even a cheap laptop has similar computing power so that's not personally why I go to my desktop anymore.

Laptops suck and always will relative to desktops.

Desktops are more powerful, more upgradeable, and have better display and interface devices.

"Having a computer" is a much higher priority to me than going places. That means "desktop" because it means having all the perks above. The most expensive gaming laptop will suck compared to a mid-tier gaming desktop. You can't squeeze the biggest cards and the best cooling or tons of beefy hard drives in a laptop. Laptops are a fundamental compromise to aforementioned "computerness" for the sake of portability, which to me is a bad deal. Anything that offers more convenience (and marketability) will compromise its core qualities. Phones are the next step down that road from laptops.

It would be nice to magically take my desktop to the couch (I don't own a couch but figuratively), bed, terrace, or park, but not as nice as using a desktop instead of a laptop is in every other way. Wireless headphones help though. :p

I want to thank you for bringing this meerkat mini to my attention..just bought a few! I feel like they are priced quite fantastically

> I'm wondering with the (permanent?) switch to work from home if laptop sales will go down.

They go up

My employer bought me a laptop to work on it during covid.

GP probably meant consumer vs business laptops. Personally I let my last laptop die and never bothered replacing it. My Pinephone works much better when I need portable computing and it means I don't have to carry two laptops on a working vacation.

I got an Hp prodesk for a something like 140 bucks (8500t) a couple of years ago from a company that went bankrupt.

My laptop stopped working and I never got a new one.

Now I have a proper monitor (4k, 27 inch), proper keyboard (Matias quiet click), a proper mouse (Logitech trackball), and a proper webcam (some cheap 1080p one I bought from amazon that beats everything in a laptop).

Sure have. Just set up a Mac mini a few months ago. Been very happy with the decision. My laptop is for where I go to the office - it’s an M1 MBPro they bought me so I flip between machines very easily.

Yes! I bought a used iMac 27 inch. It's beautiful screen but still getting used to the OS. I sold my Dell 9700 which was giant and kept my carbon X1 for loungeroom.

Have you always worked from home at home? Most people I know do work from anywhere for at least a few weeks of the year.

I also work from home. I only use my laptop when I travel once or twice a year. I much prefer my desktop computer.

what do you find appealing about regolith? it seemed kinda heavy to me

The main appeal for me is it just works how I want it to work with little to no tweaking.

I think you'd also like instantwm then

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