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Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#191

Post by cskau »

slantyyz wrote: post #151
cskau wrote: post #140

Nobody /needs/ a MacBook Pro. They're just fancy toys. Spend half the money on an inexpensive brand and get the same laptop. Linux will run on anything ( literally! ), so just buy the laptop that fits you the best, and don't worry too much about the rest. Personally I've been developing on a modest 10' ASUS eee PC for years. Ubuntu loaded with all of the above and much more have been no problem at all. Lately I've be…

Are you serious? Macbook Pros are premium notebooks in the exact same way high end Thinkpads are. The price between a Macbook Pro and any other high end notebook is competitive. With an inexpensive brand, you're getting inferior screens and flimsy plastic bodies. The specs might line up on paper, but that's as naive an approach to comparing hardware as you can get. Buying based on a flimsy spec checklist versus match…

I'm quite serious. I am however also aware that I'm upsetting the entire Apple fanboy segment in here. (with slight intent admittedly)

MacBook Pros are premium indeed. But unless you're looking specifically for the "premium" look, then there's no reason to default to Macs.

Please bear in mind that I base all my comments on first hand, personal experience. As stated I've been running on a tiny, flimsy, plastic thing for years. My trusty machine have been thrown around and even landed on a stone floor from ~2m, with me onto. I have the marks to show for it, but the machine merely chipped at the edge.

Your argument about the LCDs being inferior I simply don't follow. What makes you think you're getting a different LCD in your MBP than everybody else does? It's the same technology as in all other machines out there.

I know specs are easy to dismiss, but honestly, it's not the extra shine that makes your computer run faster.

You hit the nail on the head (pun intended) with your analogy - why should the carpenter choose a specific brand or hammer just for the aluminum handle? Inexpensive is not the same as "cheapass". You get plenty of quality machines at half the prices of a MBP.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#192

Post by more_original »

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 had almost exactly the same experience. I had a Mac (Powerbook) for almost 3 years and could get work done, but development was sometimes a hassle where it shouldn't have been (just to upgrade gcc one had to download 2gigs of XCode; installing exotic C/C++ libraries had to be done by hand; any X11-app, like inkscape, is a real pain to use; things like that). And in the end I was only using apps that have a natural home on Linux anyway (vim, latex, ocaml, java, inkscape).

I now run Ubuntu on a Thinkpad and that "Just Works" for development more than the Powerbook ever did.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#193

Post by tvon »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #172
tvon wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I import my music folder, iTunes copies all the files to it's own private directories, This is optional and IIRC, not on by default. I have to add: > Thanks, but my music is already arranged the way I like. This just baffles me. Why would you ever manually arrange your music? I used to do this when I use Linux because I basically had to if I wanted to browse it in any sane way, but I much prefer having some ap…

This just baffles me. Why would you ever manually arrange your music? I used to do this when I use Linux because I basically had to if I wanted to browse it in any sane way, but I much prefer having some app do it for me. It just strikes me as one of the many things that my computer can do well, so it should do it. It is more or less automatically arranged (by grip). I make the occasional tweak when grip screws up. A…

    $ cp /misc/music/Johnny_Cash/American*/* /media/generic_non_ipod_music_player/
You lose me there. Why would you want to manually copy individual directories to your music player? How do you handle playlists, or worse, smart playlists?

I'd go insane if I had to manually move files over like this.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#194

Post by bradleyland »

dmm wrote: post #174
bradleyland wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a heads up, you can feel perfectly confident saying that OS X is Unix. Snow Leopard is UNIX 03 certified. http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3581.htm

I don't know what UNIX means to you but where I come from UNIX means an atomic rename(2). http://www.weirdnet.nl/apple/rename.html

I said specifically in my post that OS X is UNIX 03 certified.

http://www.unix.org/version3/

The Open Group owns the Unix trademark, which is what we're all referring to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Group

So I don't know what UNIX means to you, but where I come from, it's based on a certification that adheres to a defined set of standards.

What you posted is an unresolved bug report that doesn't prove or disprove that OS X is Unix certified.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#195

Post by sandGorgon »

khandelwal wrote: post #32
joezydeco wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a Dell Latitude E6500 and it's pretty solid. Lots of metal.

If I install Ubuntu on it, does pretty much everything work? I don't care too much about suspend/resume, but I do need the wireless to work.

I have not had problems with Dell's wireless for the past 1 year.

If you are using Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10, I havent seen a Dell laptop where the wireless wasnt out-of-the-box.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#196

Post by phamilton »

mahmud wrote: post #29

You can't go wrong with a Thinkpad, in fact, I wouldn't use any other laptop if it came free. I ran thinkpads exclusively for the last 10 years. My last desktop machine had an AMD Duron and 256 megs, that's long ago it was. They're not the most good looking, but they're rugged and functional as hell. A Thinkpad looks the same after 5 years, most others peel and scratch. When I was backpacking, my road-mate had his ma…

My MBP went through the window of my car when I rolled it 4 times. Still works great.

One thing people say about Apple products is you pay a premium for the same hardware. I was talking to a friend and told him about a few unique bits of Apple Hardware.

1) The touchpad. There's a reason people now use the Apple Touchpad on desktops. It works really well. 2) Battery Life. I frequently sit through 5-6 hours of class on a single battery charge. My MBP is a mid-2009. I've heard the newer MBPs last even longer. 3) The unibody. I think a few other companies do this now, but the MBP is very low profile, and is built solidly. 4) Backlit keyboard. I remember my old days of groping in the dark for various symbols and things. The backlight makes a difference.

OS aside, if I were looking for a new laptop, these are the things I would look at. CPU speed doesn't effect me nearly as much as Battery life. 4GB RAM is pretty standard these days.

As far as OS X is concerned, I develop "in the cloud". I'm a heavy Vim/gdb user, so if I need a low level environment, I've got plenty of servers I can ssh into. If it's something like Rails or Python, it works perfectly in OS X.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#197

Post by fauigerzigerk »

bradleyland wrote: post #60
megamark16 wrote: post #56

I use a MBP at work and I'm not really a huge fan. I find the interface requires that I use the mouse way to often, and I have to know all Apple's special key combinations to get anything done. I spend most of my time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, and I wish I were booting Ubuntu natively, but I just haven't had time get it working correctly. I am also in the market for a new dev machine for personal use, and I'm lea…

> I find the interface requires that I use the mouse way to often, and I have to know all Apple's special key combinations to get anything done If you expect to get anything done without using the mouse, knowing all the "special key combinations" is a pre-requisite for any OS. I hate to be the kool-aid drinker that jumps to Apple's defense, but I hear a lot of complaints about OS X keyboard accessibility that simply…

Have you found out how to get Linux/Windows Alt+Tab behaviour on OS X? It's one of those things that slows me down 10% whenever I'm on a Mac.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#198

Post by yummyfajitas »

tvon wrote: post #193
yummyfajitas wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just baffles me. Why would you ever manually arrange your music? I used to do this when I use Linux because I basically had to if I wanted to browse it in any sane way, but I much prefer having some app do it for me. It just strikes me as one of the many things that my computer can do well, so it should do it. It is more or less automatically arranged (by grip). I make the occasional tweak when grip screws up. A…

$ cp /misc/music/Johnny_Cash/American*/* /media/generic_non_ipod_music_player/ You lose me there. Why would you want to manually copy individual directories to your music player? How do you handle playlists, or worse, smart playlists? I'd go insane if I had to manually move files over like this.

    $ cp_playlist.py countryfun /media/non_ipod_player
As I said, I can't sync iTunes to my mp3 player since a) it's not an iPod due to this anti-feature http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1202 and b) my music doesn't fit.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#199

Post by artlogic »

vilya wrote: post #185
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 agree, but you forgot to mention the killer issue (for me): there's no '#' key. Having to press Alt+3 for a '#' gets annoying pretty quickly when you're coding. It's even worse if you're running Linux on the MacBook. You have to fiddle with a mysteriously named keyboard preference ("Key to choose 3rd level") to get even the Alt+3 combination to work - and once it does, you can no longer Alt+Tab to switch between wi…

I'm confused by what you're saying here - do you have a keyboard with '#' as a primary key? Every keyboard I've ever used requires shift-3 to generate a '#'.

Your reference to 3rd level keys seems to refer to an international keyboard. Is your keyboard not a U.S. layout?

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#200

Post by eru »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #106
eru wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you just run Linux on your Macbook?

The Blub paradox applies to operating systems, not just languages. You can only avoid the Blub paradox by truly immersing yourself, and I was making a genuine attempt to do that. Macs are truly not right for me - if I gave up and switched to linux 3 months in, I'd never have known that.

Perhaps. Have you given the BSDs a try?
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