Macbook seems perfect, except for the fact that some people say I might have issues installing ubuntu on it(single boot).
The best alternative I could find is t440s, but there are some complaints about screen and trackpad.
Should I get macbook air, t440s, or there are some other, better alternatives?
This isn't to say that Macs are the superior choice, but from what I can tell you'd be throwing away a lot of the above by switching to Ubuntu, and those are a big part of the value proposition of the Macbook. If you're going to shell out for the Macbook, just use OS X.
That said, if you don't mind the overhead, you can achieve a similar outcome running a virtual machine inside of OS X.
I have a Macbook air I got from work. The lack of buttons on the mouse is a serious pain in the arse if you ask me. Then you have to buy an adaptor to plug it in to a monitor. No ethernet either (who uses ethernet these days? The hotel I was staying in in Germany supplied me with internet via ethernet).
Installing Linux was less than straightforward (the reason I am using Ubuntu and not another distribution, though I did have the same problem with an Asus laptop, and secure boot).
I preferred my more traditional Lenovo laptop that I had before this, but a lot of these are personal niggles, and depends how you want to use the machine.
None of these thing is a show stopper, but they kind of add up to a sub par experience.
When you're talking about the mouse, do you mean the separate Magic Mouse? If so I agree; any standard PC mouse is way easier and better to use. If you mean the touchpad, then I honestly have no issues with it. It responds to clicks just fine.
The lack of an Ethernet port was definitely a downside for me, but it hasn't hurt me yet since everywhere I've gone with Internet has always had wireless.
Honestly, my biggest gripe is the Command key. The position is where the Ctrl key normally is...some applications, both terminal and GUI, have Mac keyboard shortcuts with Command serving in place of Ctrl, and then some others still use Ctrl. I constantly find myself forgetting which to use when I'm in an application I use less frequently.
I can emulate a second button (right click) with two fingers, but it is pretty fiddly, and I often mess up with fat fingers. And I really miss having a third button for pasting from the current buffer.
Another great option is the Acer Aspire S7. According to the Arch Wiki, everything just works [2].
On a side note, I bought a macbook pro at the same time I got this Dell XPS13. The Macbook pro is amazing compared to ubuntu.
Not quite everything works on the 15z. The external HDMI out will not work unless you restart (no hot plug for an external monitor). The Nvidia/Intel hybrid graphics system was also poorly supported until recently.
Otherwise everything seems to work fine. I rarely need to reboot (usually only after a kernel upgrade).
It might be a good idea to check out the Ubuntu Hardware Support Wiki before you buy, for example:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops/Del...
Re trackpads: The trackpad on the thinkpad X1 series is great
And I'll have to check out the X1. Thanks for the tip!
I wish I could buy an open hardware laptop similar to the Novena laptop (https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop), but made more for software developers. It would look like a Macbook Pro but have official support for Linux. It would have a 256GB SSD drive, a 64-bit ARM processor, 16GB of RAM, a 15-inch Retina display (touchscreen), wifi 802.11ac, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0, stereo speakers, headphone port, SD card reader, HDMI, microphone and a webcam. My budget would be as much as $3000. I would install Ubuntu 14.04 on it (ideally it would be officially supported and even pre-installed).
I've seen rumors of a new MacBook Air with Retina display, a touchscreen and an ARM processor in mid-2015. It will probably be my next laptop unless someone starts a crowdfunding for an open hardware laptop.
I also have a Chromebook Pixel from I/O 13 but I wish Google would release a new version that's more polished and with better specs. It's actually a fantastic laptop.
It looks well, feels well, but it's not suitable for devs. I'm a long time lenovo x200 line user, and the X1 is really bad compared to those models.
Can't recommend.
The pros: 1. Super fast boot 2. Super fast just about everything 3. Awesome command line 4. great for development
Cons: 1. Battery life sucks on Linux. No optimizations of any kind. In windows, I was able to work for 3+ hours on my battery, now I am happy if I get 1 hour on Linux.
2. Nvidia drivers are still a pain. I tried the built in Ubuntu driver and got super slow refresh rates on a dual 24" setup. On the other hand, the native Nvidia drivers freeze the machine every now and then. Guess I'll just have to live with it
3. Docking the machine sometimes screws up the resolution. Boot the machine undocked, and then dock it seems to be the trick. Not sure if other systems have this issue.
Before taking that decision, I had read plenty of reviews of various models, but could not find a decent PC out there that would be both light, and powerful, with a good screen (something the MBA might not be best at to be honest). The best results I found were the Yoga 2 Pro (but Linux compatibility does not look great), and the Asus NX500 that has not yet been released, and that appeared to be disappointing based on pre-production version reviews.
Here's a review of the screen: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T...
This way I get the best UI shell and have all my Dev work done on Linux.
See http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=asus_zenb...
However, hardware compatibility and installation issues are more or less what you're choosing when you choose Linux as a desktop OS. If that sounds like a fun project (and it really does to a lot of people) then you'll be fine with an MBA. If you want something that "just works" then, sadly, you want a proprietary OS.
If you get enough RAM on your MBA, running Ubuntu in a full-screen Virtualbox window all the time will get you a Linux machine without the driver/wifi/power issues.
System76 is also worth looking into, since they claim to provide a "just works" UX for Ubuntu directly on top of hardware.
And my HP Pavilion that i couldn't get wifi to work on, seems ot have made it onto this list anyway: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/make/HP/?categor...