Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#121

Post by silentbicycle » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:42 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #92

tjr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to toss this question in, because I've seen lots of people make a similar comment, but never have really seen an explanation as to why: what is the problem with iTunes? For me, I don't do much in the way of using iTunes; I set up a play list, press play, minimize it, and enjoy listening to music while I do other things. Maybe I'm not a music player power user?

Some "features" of iTunes: When I import my music folder, iTunes copies all the files to it's own private directories, using the filesystem as an index. Thanks, but my music is already arranged the way I like. iTunes doesn't play flac or ogg. And when I rip a CD, it wants to save it in some proprietary flac-like format (which, as far as I know, does not work on non-macs). I enjoy controlling my music from a phone/tab…

The Venn diagram of (people who like iTunes, people who like mpd* ) would look like two circles, separated by hundreds of miles of barren tundra. That's like the intersection between plumbers and meerkats.

* Self included. Lua mpd library, FWIW: http://github.com/silentbicycle/lua-mpd

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#122

Post by erikwiffin » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:42 PM UTC

jzawodn wrote: post #73

mcxx wrote: post #52

I use an Asus UL-30 and recommend it - great keyboard and touchpad, long battery life, lightweight, good display, no problems with Ubuntu.

The touchpad drives me nuts on that machine. :-( Thankfully I have a Thinkpad 410s replacing it tomorrow.

I have a UL-30 and the wildly sensitive touchpad is my only complaint.

I love the keyboard, battery life, and how light it is. It performs more than well enough for web development, web browsing, video watching.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#123

Post by kls » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #113

Jun8 wrote: post #68

I went through the same exact process you are going through a few months ago, my manager wanted to replace our laptops with new, Linux-based ones and asked us what to get. I switched to a 15" MBP, being never a Mac person before. The first week or so was painful. Mac OS wasn't as intuitive as I though it would be and it may be hard to find how to do things as a power Linux user. But after that initial learning curve,…

I feel stupid whenever I sit down at a computer without multi-touch and spotlight now. The software of a mac is just so nice and polished.

I could not live without multi-touch now. It is a true mouse killer. I am sure it has added 30% to my productivity alone. Someone turned me on to BetterTouchTools and the rest has been history. With 3 finger click copy, 4 finger click paste I can blaze through a lot of tasks.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#124

Post by lfnik » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

I have a System76 laptop and I really like it. The built in speakers are terrible but I usually use headphones so who cares. The touch pad buttons are a little stubborn too.

Other than that boot-up time is pretty fast, and I don't spend hours trying to find drivers for hardware. And it cost me half of what a Macbook Pro would.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#125

Post by silentbicycle » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

aconbere wrote: post #19

I can not rave enough about the Lenovo X201 small, fast, usable. I switched to the lenovo machine after using a MBP for the previous 4 years. But it really depends on what you need and want. I commute with my laptop, travel with my laptop, and generally like to carry it arround. I'm not willing to accept either of the choices that Apple has for me, excessive weight (MBP 15' or 17'), or last generation processors (MBP…

Nth-ing old thinkpads. I have a t41, it's really nice. I'm going to get an t60 when (if!) it kicks the bucket. (Running OpenBSD on mine.)

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#126

Post by boothead » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:47 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #69

If you want to do development in a language other than python/ruby, or even want to use python libraries written in c, avoid the macbook. If you are certain you will stick to {svn, git, django, python, vim}, you'll be fine. My mac ownership timeline: Day 1: Ooh, pretty. 2-3 days: I fucking hate iTunes. Luckily ports install mpd works. 1 month: Ooh, the pretty magsafe connector saved me from dropping it when I tripped…

I recently (2 days ago) installed refit on my macbook pro and now have a dual boot with ubuntu 10.10 (which, by the way, rocks so hard I might not boot back into OSX again).

That's the best of both worlds for me: mac hardware, OSX for my wife and ubuntu for me. Perfect.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#127

Post by kls » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:53 PM UTC

balu wrote: post #63

I just switched to Ubuntu again - on a two year old Macbook Pro 4,1 though. To tell a bit about the software side on a Mac: As long as you don't mess with the system, it runs nicely. Recently I wanted to have a look at clutter ("software library for creating (...) graphical user interfaces") which depends on newer versions of the libraries that ship with OS X. After fiddling around with building it myself (or buildin…

For web development, OS X was nice

I honestly don't want to miss the multitouch trackpad

These are the key take aways, OSX is good for web / mobile development and the track pad is one hell of a plus for going with a MBP. I would not use OSX for C or C++ development or any system development for that matter, but for web and mobile it is a great system.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#128

Post by aidenn0 » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:54 PM UTC

MacBook Pros have their ups and downs:

Ups: 1) Really nice construction 2) Really well put together GUI 3) In general it's a nicer experience than a non-mac with similar tech-specs.

Downs: 1) No standard central packaging system; All the software you mention is available on the mac but you have to either: a) Build it yourself b) Use macports or fink, etc. Furthermore, some of the more gui focused things have very nice mac-native ports (e.g. MacVim) but you'll have to track those down yourself. 2) Price. You can get a very nice non-mac laptop every year for the same price as getting the 17" Macbook Pro every 2 years. I compare to the 17" since I won't code on anything with less that 1200 vertical lines. If you plan on only coding with an external monitor, this may not apply. 3) Not super configurable. You get something very well put together and designed, but that also means there aren't a lot of options.

I had the option of getting a macbook pro at work but went with a Dell instead.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#129

Post by notauser » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:56 PM UTC

aconbere wrote: post #19

I can not rave enough about the Lenovo X201 small, fast, usable. I switched to the lenovo machine after using a MBP for the previous 4 years. But it really depends on what you need and want. I commute with my laptop, travel with my laptop, and generally like to carry it arround. I'm not willing to accept either of the choices that Apple has for me, excessive weight (MBP 15' or 17'), or last generation processors (MBP…

I tried out a X201 and really liked it, but it has two other problems as well as the video out which were deal breakers for me:

- Low screen resolution.

- Very tall screen (especially for a 12" - due to the huge bezel) so it won't open comfortable in the back of an economy seat.

I ended up with the bottom of the range Vaio Z series instead (1600x900 res 13.3" screen that is more than an inch shorter than the X201, with HMDI and VGA out). I run Ubuntu in a VM 99.9% of the time. That setup is working really well for me and I actually like the keyboard at least as much as the IBM one.

Running Linux in VMWare player doesn't seem to be any slower in practice thanks to VT, and it has greatly improved the ease of installing, upgrading and backing up my main Linux installation. I don't even bother to back up Windows - if it goes wrong I'll just blow it away and do a clean install.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#130

Post by anonymous245 » Wed, Oct 13, 2010, 4:58 PM UTC

No, the experience on the MBP is not so much better as to warrant getting it for development.

IMHO, it's worse. My biggest gripes: (1) built-in terminal doesn't do fullscreen, (2) built-in terminal doesn't have easy way to emulate different keyboards (tmux requires function keys behave like xterm).

BUT the iApps are SWEET. iPhoto/iMovie are rocking my world.

I say this as a recent dabbler in Mac.