Ask HN: Macbook Air + Remote Server = Macbook Pro?

In terms of latency, I've found that http://mosh.mit.edu/ pretty much delivers on its promises.

I've kept remote sessions active while in at train at 140km/h, constantly roaming between GPRS, 3G and LTE. Mosh delivers its promises and more.

very cool

Thanks for this! Seems to offer exactly the solution I need to solve my issues with woeking on EC2 instances.

It also is great to have your shell back up as soon as you have a connection. It switches almost seamlessly as you switch connections too.

If it were not for the odd reboot, it is a "set and forget" kind of thing.

I'm going to jump in with my own solution. I recently moved over to using a Google Chromebook running Ubuntu, with Amazon EC2 instances that I connect to when needed. I spin the instances up and down as I need them. It works wonderfully, and I can't go back.

Admittedly, the Chromebook does have its limitations compared to a Macbook Air. Ubuntu on it has its quirks, but I'm willing to deal with it and wait for issues to be ironed out. A Macbook Air would definitely not have such issues.

I usually do mobile app development, web development, data crunching in Python for my Masters, and I haven't run into any problems doing what I need to do. I love the portability and simplicity.

I'd seriously recommend it.

http://www.xitijpatel.com/2012/12/16/google-chromebook-and-u...

I have been Macbook Pro based since April 2010. It's my first Mac. I got ~full specs at the time (1GB SATA non-SSD drive - no regrets there, I've needed the space; 2.3Ghz Core i7; 8GB 1333Mhz RAM).

I've taken the system through about 10 countries in 2 years. I don't really have a house, and I have to carry everything with me. (That includes a video camera, a heavy pro DSLR, chargers, etc.)

I do use VMWare, plus occasionally game, video edit, etc. and so have similar performance requirements.

Given the above, and that recently my partner bought a new Macbook Air (far cheaper), and we took both of them travelling around a few months of Indonesia, Thailand, etc., I think I am well informed to comment.

My advice would be this: Think very carefully about comfort and workflow, before money.

Comfort-wise, for me, having a large screen and keyboard are non-negotiable. The difference is huge, particularly if you want to use the thing instead of a desktop for any length of time (eg. multi-country mobility, like my situation).

Workflow-wise, it's ultimately all about your specific situation. In my situation, I don't have enough space to store all my raw images, VMs, video, etc. but have come to a good solution with a secondary small form-factor external USB3 drive I access from the Mac (via rsync over SSH and a Linux VM, no less! I don't trust non-ext3 filesystems after bad experiences! Some driver I found claiming ext* support on OSX never worked.). I've never had an SSD-is-primary-drive machine, so don't feel there is any issue with speed.

As for remote ... depends on the connection quality and reliability where you are planning to go.

Sounds to me like you could probably solve your build/test issues by queueing testing via your development process, eg. by syncing your new code only when online and using a remote (eg. EC2-hosted) continuous integration server which could probably resolve a lot of issues you never knew you had, as well as the ones you are looking at. That way you could use cloud windows boxes spun up automatically from platform-linked images, potentially bringing them up and down automatically with your CI server.

If you are worried about money, don't be. We forget how much time we spend in front of these things. It's far better to invest in good tools. Really. I mean, 60Mb/s fiber in Europe, don't worry about a few ms, or a few hundred dollars. Worry about your health.

Did you mean 1TB SATA non-SSD drive :-)?

You're line of work sounds very interesting. I'd love to hear more about it!

OK. I am basically a 15 year Linux user, web-stack focused code-wise, but never left the source-based Unix environment and unix-fu. Compiling kernels, configuring HA clusters, low level packet mangling, all good. These days I'm mostly interested in improving development process, emerging kernel features, and systems architecture. Working for a startup remotely right now, very hands on ... everything from speccing hardware and layout to purchase, physical network configuration, system setup & ongoing admin, design of full web stack .. writing all code through to JS .. even UI design. My strength, I would say, lies in breadth of experience and honesty. It took me 15 years to get a job this fantasic though, and that's constant work. When I meet office-dwellers, in a bar, I explain to them: that's longer than a BA, MA, PhD and a few years of work experience combined. And I had to office-dwell, too, once.

I have asked myself the same question as I would like to upgrade my machine. I currently run a MBA 2011 with 4GB of RAM. It is by far my best computer purchase. When I'm at a desk, it's plugged into an external monitor. Until Mountain Lion, I never had a problem with RAM, but I've adjusted how I do things on my laptop to fix the issue. I wrote up a PrOACT and found that it came down to 1 point for me.

- Do I require the dedicated video card and is that video card worth $1000+ increased bill

So if you're only looking to do development, go for the MBA since it's better cost for use. The Retina doesn't matter if you're always plugged in like I am.

Your only question you should ask yourself is, do you either want to use multiple monitors which the MBA can not do or do you want to be able to play games that require the video card?

Latency to me is not a problem. I live in asia and there is internet everywhere. Would it really make that much of a difference for you?

Thanks, I don't do any gaming but I would like the ability for multiple monitors. This article suggest that the latest 2012 models do support 2 external displays - http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage...

I didn't know the 2012 models support multiple monitors. Since that's the case and you do not want to game it's a no brainer.

8GB of ram + SSD will get you far!

My Retina Macbook Pro 13" is my main machine and I connect 2 27" Viewsonic monitors to it daily. It works just fine for everyday work (iterm, vim, intellij, rdp and office apps)

If only it had 16GB (not available on the 13" rMBP model), it would be the perfect laptop

While it can drive two external displays, it only has one Thunderbolt port. The only easy way to attach multiple monitors is chaining Apple's Thunderbolt Displays. Other setups may require Thunderbolt docks or the like.

I am using an early 2011 MPB. It was my first Mac (after using Debian for 4+ years). I needed it for my school work (using Adobe Photoshop was a must). I needed a computer I could easily carry (home to school and home to girlfriend's home, which is 700km from where I live).

I use my computer for web development, watching a few high resolution movies and playing to some humble bundle games. I didn't buy a MacBook Air because of the integrated graphic chip (some of my friends have one and using it with a 27' monitor made the MBA/MPB 13' really really hot, especially during the summer ; it was around 30/35°C in France). Plus I ended up doing my internship in a company where their core knowledge was working using WebGL. Anyone trying to use our product with a MBA/MBP 13' couldn't because of the integrated graphic.

I also tried to work directly on a server (for coding), it's really great but as soon as you don't have Internet (either you use your phone for the connection or you are stuck and you can't work) you are stuck. And I've been stuck more than I thought I will. I didn't know about mosh at the time and had also a few problems with connection/deconnection and that is really painfull when you are using a few ssh terminal at the same time.

As contingencies said, it's really about comfort, carrying one more kilo was not a problem for me and even if I could spare spending more money having the setup I needed and not being "stuck" when doing something is better than not spending a few euros.

Re portability with the Retina MacBookPro: I've had mine (15") for about 3 months now, and I have to say it's absolutely great.

The Air is very thin, and weighs in at 1.35Kg, but has a weak CPU and Intel graphics.

The rMBP is not that extremely thin, but it's amazingly thin as well, a lot thinner that the old MBPs and other laptops. It weighs only 2Kg which still makes it very light to carry around. I'd say that for portability, the new 15" rMBP is great. Light and small enough to carry but still powerful enough to work on. Given that it has a i7 CPU, GF 640 graphics card, 16GB RAM, a retina display, and almost the same battery life as the air, which is 6-7 hours.

You can host your VM's on a remote server if you like, but as far as choosing Air vs rMBP, the rMBP is an obvious winner, except if you mind the higher price tag.

Thanks prody, thats really helpful. I've also got an awful habit of consuming media content on my laptop whilst lying back in bed and on the sofa etc. Do you ever do this and find the 15" cumbersome or heavy in these situations?

It's light enough to carry in bed, and is really comfortable to use. I actually do it very often, I even have a laptop bed table but I actually never use it since the rMBP has such a nice solid feel to it.

Even considering bed use, I'd still go with a rMBP over an Air, for the rest of the advantages.

The one thing you might find annoying is that the rMBP can get pretty hot when under stress, e.g. if you watch a movie in bed, it will get warm around the top rows of the keyboard. The way I hold it, it doesn't really bother me that much, though after I got it I took it to an Apple store because I was worried with how hot it would get. You can use something like smcFanControl to turn up the fans, which will make it cool down fast, but it's nicer to use it in bed without it making any noise at all.

If you'd like to see exactly how hot it gets, just go to an apple store, and stress it's CPU a bit

e.g. open a terminal and pipe yes to dev null in 16 processes:

for i in {1..16}; do yes > /dev/null &; done

It should get really warm in ~2 minutes, you can walk around while this happens. (when done, remember to kill the processes: killall yes)

You need a power source though once in a while. If you're a college student who walks around the campus all day, working on small desks and park benches I'd get an Air. For everything else, like working around the house or office, definitely go with Pro.

I am in your exact same situation. What I am thinking to do is get a Macbook Air and spin up Amazon EC2 instances if I need more power. This way I only pay for what I use + I have a wide range of server instances I can use, from micro to xlarge (68GB RAM which costs ~$30 per hour).

I have just moved all my servers to hetzner a few days ago. I'm running them all on a Quad Core i7 with 32GB mem, it's an EX 4S. So far so good. Expect a day to get the server and make sure you order any extra ip's when you order the server otherwise you will have to wait a day for the ip. I needed one extra ip because i'm running vmware free esxi hypervisor and it doesn't route traffic to it's clients. So I have a virtualised firewall aswell it can be handy being able to vpn into your virtualised environments. I also installed an ubuntu desktop, working fine. I'm usually all about the terminal but the esxi is controlled via an xp which is running on my retina macbook pro in virtual box. (Esxi client is windows only).

You should never leave VMware management ports open to the internet.

I suggest you install a Windows XP, Win Server inside the virtual, turn on the "automatic start up" on that VM, just after you the automatic start up of your virtual FW and use RDP with a 2 factor authentication (duo security is free and works beautifully), which now is you "management" machine.

Just my 2 cents on Virtual Security, since this is the setup I have :)

I totally agree with you. I did that when I had physical access to my own servers. What do you if the firewall doesn't come up? That's my worry now that I don't have direct access to the servers. Won't you end up being locked out?

You'd have much higher latency working on the remote VMs than on local VMs. You'd also be dependent on Internet connectivity and you'd have to rely on Hetzner's machines being available whenever you need to do your work. Shit does happen.

Pinging my existing Hetzner servers is around 45ms which is acceptable latency for me. Reliability from Hetzner hasn't been great for our servers but for what I need it for it is reliable enough.

Reliability problems with Hetzner? I was under the impression they're a very good host.

I have never had a problem with hetzner doing this exact thing.

I had 2 problems in 10yrs with Hetzner, very very few.

Just remember that with the lower end dedicated servers you are dealing with desktop class hardware. With the last server I received from them one of the HD's in a raid1 was dead and although they replaced it quickly I was required to reconfigure it wasting quite a bit of time.

I have this set up and I love it. I didn't do this intentionally at first. I'm a PhD student, so I have a powerful (well, was powerful at the time of purchase) desktop in my office. I use to carry around a hulking laptop (desktop replacement, basically) until one day I got a grant to buy a Mac Air.

I've never looked back.

Thanks to git, SSH, screen and Dropbox, syncing is super easy.

Once in awhile, it is a bit annoying when I need to process some large files and I'm on a plane or something. Then the slowness of the Mac Air kinda shows. But otherwise, it's perfect. It's also ideal since I can push jobs to my desktop and use my Mac for personal stuff.

In my office we have been giving all dev's 13" full spec air's for about 2 years. Need to process a big data set etc? Do it on our EC2 setup. It works better and people don't tend to have as much stuff on there machines.

I have been doing this for years, no worries. Latency is rarely going to be an issue with remote desktop--you could get more than acceptable performance over a 56K modem line at MBA resolutions way back in ancient times. And depending on the Internet connection at the host performance may well be better than running locally because the data is moving over their big pipe and only the display is moving over your smaller pipe.

I would make sure to use virtualization software on my server that also runs on my laptop so I could easily grab a local copy of a VM to take with me on a flight, etc.

At work we all use the higher spec 13" air's - keeping our dev environment inside linux vm's that run locally.. I run a few windows vm's for front end testing but we do have a beautiful windows machine sat in the corner too - as long as I don't try and run everything at once its fine, with the benefit of having the lightweight machine to take around the place..

Do you always stay connected to the internet when you need to work / how much would it affect your productivity if you weren't able to access a remote server? I imagine the latency would get annoying, even if it were minor.

Could you not easily upgrade the RAM to 16gb on the W500? Disk upgrade to 512GB should also be doable. (My x220 has 16Gb/512Gb and it does well for similar vm based setup.) Or do you have an older model w500?

No, the W500 is limited to 8GB. The W510 can take 16GB and the W520+ 32GB

Is it actually limited to 8GB, or is that just what Lenovo says/is willing to support?

My x220 limited to 8GB in ever bit of published Lenovo literature, but I bought 16GB of RAM at the same spec as the 8GB I have running now and everything works fine.

I upgraded my Dell Latitude E6520 to 16Go while it is supposed to be limited to 8. Don't be fool by the manufacturer specifications.

I'd prefer the Air or even the Pro (there's really not much difference in portability terms) and still work remotely. It's liberating to host everything on the cloud. You don't have to worry about your local setup failing, the VMs hogging resources and making your machine unusable (or destroying your battery).

Right now I'm using a Macbook Pro 2012 w/o the Retina. I do all my development on Linode servers, remotely. I get 6 hours of battery life and the machine is a pleasure to work on. I wouldn't go back to my old Windows laptop, where I used PuTTY to work.

Don't undersell the value of having a monstrously fast local machine; I much prefer working on big datasets locally, as my machine is significantly faster than nearly any EC2 node. And, it's portable and has a fantastic screen. And works in the car or behind a spotty connection.

I have the same sort of problem, and went with the MBPr. I need large VMs (6gb+ of ram) and travel a fair bit, so dragging around a big Dell was taking its toll. The MBPr has been great, the only limit being disk space, 512GB fill up quickly when each Windows image takes 40+ GBs. Also, the gorgeous screen, 6 months later, is now ghosting on me.

A colleague went with Air + VPN to his home lab, but that fails when your customer works "in a bunker" (i.e. heavy-handed firewalls and proxies, common in financial sectors).

Take your MacBook in and you'll get a replacement one, typically on the spot. I know at least 3 people who've had their rMBP replaced due to ghosting.

Just to reiterate this - I had the exact same problem, and they replaced the display immediately.

I found this article really helpful when I realized all my work really revolved around my servers. I've got an iPad with a really nice Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and I love the fact that I can charge it overnight and use it all day (just like my cell phone). Of course, there are more limitations with my rig than you'd experience with a MacBook Air.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/swap-your-laptop-ipad-li...

This is what I've been doing when traveling and the Logitech Ultrathin is relatively nice to type on.

Normally when I travel I need internet access anyways to do all my tasks (fix and/or deploy something), so a local environment isn't very important to me. I guess if I was some coffee house coder doing dev work I'd go for laptop

Thanks, I remember that article too. For Windows development it wouldn't work well but I do envy that battery life!

The Air is a somewhat paradoxical machine in that it is extremely portable and therefore perfect for travel, which is when you often lose the data connection and therefore need more power to run VMs! You, however, don't have that problem, if indeed you are most often working from home. In the case you describe, definitely go for the Air, or wait a few months to see if the Air gets a retina screen. I have an air, and it is difficult to consider going back to anything even slightly bulkier.

>The Air is a somewhat paradoxical machine in that it is extremely portable and therefore perfect for travel, which is when you often lose the data connection and therefore need more power to run VMs!

If you loose the connection you're screwed anyway, except if you work in some long term isolated part of a system.

Else, you have no access to the repo for other people's commits, no mail or IM contant to see what to work on etc, no way to check documentation/Stack Overflow/etc, no way to connect and make changes to the deployment servers, etc.

But it's not like people don't have access to the network on travels, anyway. In most hotels, coffee-houses etc you can get a wifi connection easily, and that's even in places like major African cities.

Yeah, I was referring to those long haul airplane rides more than anything else.

The 13" retina would be a perfect solution if you could get it with more than 8GB of ram. But since people are suggesting Airs with that much ram I would certainly take the retina 13" instead. Actually smaller but a little heavier than the Air but with that fantastic screen.

Get the retina MBP. You won't have to think about setting up, backing up, connecting to, updating, or securing a remote server if you do. Unless you enjoy doing those things, you are better off saving that time and especially effort for other things like family time.

I get awful headaches using anything more reflective than the MBA display, so unfortunately Apple's retina notebooks are all unusable for me. It is something to consider if you are coming from a high quality matte display like a Thinkpad.

Assuming you will use the laptop for two years before selling it for 50% of the original price, the server will cost extra 1200 eur (24x50) during that period, making the Air + server option more expensive. Also, it's much more comfortable to have everything running on localhost. No network lag issues, no dependency on fast internet connection, less hassle, etc. Not to mention very nice 2880*1800 display.

Thanks, I already have the server capacity available and paid for so I wouldn't incur any additional cost. You may be right about that resolution though, I've never seen it. Thanks for the advice.

A company I own rents virtual servers that run on Hetzner hardware. We had terrible trouble getting Xen or KVM to run correctly on their network and never got the networking to function correctly so we gave up and offered OpenVZ only. This was a year or two ago, perhaps things have changed though.

On the positive side Hetzner are an excellent host, unbeatable value and amazing support.

Hu? I know quite a lot of people who run KVM & Xen at Hetzner without any trouble.. Care to explain what your problems were?

FWIW, I run multiple virtual machines (Windows 8, 7, and XP, Ubuntu, and more) on my 2012 MacBook Air 13". I'd run out of space fast using the internal SSD, so instead I have a USB 3 external HD that I run the virtual machines from. Now, I'm usually only running one virtual machine at a time, but really, it runs very nicely, far faster than I would have expected.

No apple store to check out the macbooks? I just ordered the rMBP, 2.6 16 256(best value I think) for $2499. The SSD is way to expensive to justify for me, my data can be on an external hd or server. They are light and slim enough for me. Movies and photos are amazing and its fast enough to load up Starcraft2 or other games when I want.

Actually no, the tiny island of Malta where i'm currently stationed has only recently seen it's first retail Apple store (not official Apple store) and they lock the laptops down for security reasons such that you cannot pick them up to test how they feel and weigh in the hand. Crazy, I know.

I'm in a similar situation. I commute 3 hours each day on mass transit and love the Air in those situations, but I do miss the processor power.

I happen to have a pretty beefy PC at home, so I just RDC into that for my Visual Studio and compiler needs (I think I'm one of about seven people who develop .NET on a Mac!)

During what activities do you miss processor power on the Air? or is it just a general lack of responsiveness when booting, opening apps etc. and what is your processor?

Mostly waiting for Parallels to spin up and compiling in Visual Studio. I have the 1.8 i7.

Why not just upgrade the W500? It'll be far cheaper than going to Mac and renting out a server. For disk space you could get the SATA HDD bay for storage and memory is simple to upgrade on Thinkpads (and better it doesn't void your warranty, because Lenovo doesn't assume your an idiot).

Because the W500 doesn't support more than 8GB ram and uses the old Sata 3Gb/s interface which I believe would be a bottleneck with the latest SSD's.

The SATA interface won't make a significant difference. It does at the margin but not for normal use. If you are going to use remote servers why upgrade at all?

Primarily because I want to move to OSX and I'm looking for something more portable than the beastly W500 (+- 30% heavier than rMBP)

Didn't know that. I thought as their mobile workstation it'd have a higher cap than that. It is a little old I guess.

Personally I'd go with a new Thinkpad. MBPros are nice but the new ones are completely non-upgradable which is a real deal breaker. I've used a T500 for a little over 4 years now with nothing but more RAM, a new SSD, and a storage bay HDD.

Tangentially related :- I use a Lenovo with 16gig ram for light dev work running VMs', and I use a ExoPC running Win7 and Mouse with Borders for viewing documentation/stackoveflow, and use an Ipad as a second monitor.

Basically means I have a 3 screen portable setup which works quite well.

MB Air are too big and heavy these days. Go for a Samsung Series 9 or Chromebook, especially if you don't care about Retina. Certainly not the MBPro, they're incredibly heavy and overpriced.

I do basically what you're proposing here, with a lightweight ultrabook, and it works very well.

Is that supposed to be a joke or are you really being that ridiculous? MBA is too big and heavy? Right... The Samsung Series 9 is typical Samsung poorly made junk and a Chromebook is a whole different story. The MBP is not heavy or overpriced for what you get. Show me something else in the PC World that compares..oh thats right, there isn't anything.

If you wanted mobility around the house while avoiding WAN latency and reliability issues, you could buy a server and keep it in your house, rather than renting it and accessing remotely. Then get the Air and use that to RDP, SSH, etc. to the server.

Seems like you could more or less test out the setup with your current machine but VMs on a remote server so you could get an idea of the latency and see how well it works for you.

It seems like a reasonable idea to me if you always have a fast connection.

If you want portability, get an 11". Maybe you think you need those extra 2", but I believe in time that you will find you are wrong, and never look back.

Two weeks a go, I purchased a MacBook Air. I leaned toward a 11" but found the 1366x768 resolution slightly too dense for the screen (135 ppi). I ended up getting the 13" MBA, which has a 1440x900 screen (128 ppi). This machine I can use at its native resolution, whereas with the 11" model I'd use it at a scaled down resolution.

Before, I had a MacBook Pro with a HDD. I would use my iPad whenever I could, because it'd be instantly on and feel faster in use. My MBA has a 256GB SSD and it feels just as fast as my iPad.

Back to the main topic: I keep Windows VMs, version management and backups at a dedicated server at Leaseweb. Local copies are kept on the MBA and a Mac mini at home (where it's also backed up to external disks by SuperDuper). This way, I can always choose to work on my iPad or MBA, files are accesible from everywhere.

Linux Libvirt on the server, Linux libvirt on the Macbook Air. You can use SPICE to connect to the server VMs. All built in, no setup, all as easy as VMWare or the like would be. I'm using that with Cinnamon on Ubuntu 12.10 and I'm in bliss.

Also, I think you will be very very very hard pressed to find anyone who owns a Macbook air who would tell you to get anything else. People who don't own them underestimate them and they're not anywhere near as underpowered as people act like.

As someone who recently bought a Macbook Air, I really wish I'd spent a bit more and gotten a retina MBP. I'm planning to get a 27" iMac soon because I'm sick of the small screen.