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Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#271

Post by igrekel »

lusis wrote: post #270
igrekel wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean un-unix or un-linux? Which parts?

That's a fair statement. I think there were two big ones: - the service registry/init system - filesystem paths The second is minor in the grand scheme of things. It only affects my user account but the first one was greatly annoying. My history is in AIX/HP-UX before going Linux full time so I'm familiar with the smit/sam model of doing things but have you ever tried to actually usea traditional unix/linux model for…

The Mac I have is in the living room for family use so I have not "worked" a lot on it. I didn't use much of the default tools and relied more on macports for unix stuff. I was asking because I am considering a Mac to replace the windows laptop with cygwin I use for dev. I use Linux for servers but I am from the world of Solaris I also had HP and Irix workstations at different jobs in the past and a NeXT at home.

I know the defaults are all Linux oriented these days so any different flavor of unix is always a little extra work if the filesystem differs to much. Macports also adds a little twist to that.

I found launchd verbose (and the xml is not even that self descriptive) and I am not sure its worth the departure from the usual way of doing things but I didn't think it was so bad. I only did a few simple things anyway.

These seem like things I don't rely on too much on a dev laptop anyway. But I now believe I have to investigate a bit more before I buy the new machine. Thanks

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#272

Post by lusis »

igrekel wrote: post #271
lusis wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair statement. I think there were two big ones: - the service registry/init system - filesystem paths The second is minor in the grand scheme of things. It only affects my user account but the first one was greatly annoying. My history is in AIX/HP-UX before going Linux full time so I'm familiar with the smit/sam model of doing things but have you ever tried to actually usea traditional unix/linux model for…

The Mac I have is in the living room for family use so I have not "worked" a lot on it. I didn't use much of the default tools and relied more on macports for unix stuff. I was asking because I am considering a Mac to replace the windows laptop with cygwin I use for dev. I use Linux for servers but I am from the world of Solaris I also had HP and Irix workstations at different jobs in the past and a NeXT at home. I k…

In my case I find myself fullscreening a vm if I can't change to base install. I have too much muscle memory that I can't implement on other os:

Cmd-t new terminal Cmd-w new browser Cmd-e new vim session Cmd-f new file manager window

Then I have my ctrl-shift keybinds for terminator and my vim keybinds. I'm especially unproductive without the cmd-t option available and the terminator keybinds.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#273

Post by drats »

mkramlich wrote: post #263
drats wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's the opposite, I had a white macbook and the casing cracked and the hdd failed (along with an iPhone with 3G that didn't work - powercord that frayed and headphones that died). The X200 on the other hand has a much higher quality keyboard and seems to be a higher quality than all my past Apple products. After being locked into paying for 3G for two years and not having the phone work with it I will not be…

1. the white macbook is by intent their cheapest, and therefore, lowest durability/quality laptop. that's the whole point really. their more expensive product models do have a reputation of being more robust. everything costs. 2. "don't support their products in the slightest" <-- this is hyperbole because it's easily shown to be false by hundreds of stories on the web from people who have had good support experience…

1. I have a white plastic netbook too that cost almost half. I don't see any cracks in it. You are arguing that a $1000+ machine can have cracks in it after a month because it's not a "premium" product. That just sounds like the bleating of an Apple apologist. Furthermore, you don't address the dead HDD, the fraying power cable, the dead earphones and the non-functional 3G on the phone.

2. http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliab... Quote and write properly please, learn to capitalise. Apple are mediocre with good product aesthetics (I'll give them that, although see below) and excellent PR and an ok-ish window and application manager (which has nothing on apt-get) they whacked on top of existing open source. They may be big now but it took an emergency investment from Microsoft to save them, and even then it took masses of open source software (and a few iterations of OS X) before they had anything passable to run on their doddering hardware. Also, as you sound like an Apple fanatic who notoriously get these things wrong, I'd point out that the mouse was taken from Englebart window manager concept was taken from Xerox (in addition to the OS from BSD and Webkit from KDE). There are also posts showing Johnathan Ive plundered product designs from the past. So the innovation is paper thin, the engineering is massively taken from elsewhere, some of the product design is taken too and the reliability is mediocre as proven by the stats.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#274

Post by fnl »

mgedmin wrote: post #249
fnl wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use OSX 10.6 for C and Python, at times Cpp and only if forced to I even do Ruby or Java development on my MBPs (got two - boast...). I do not like either fink or MacPorts and install everything myself. So far, I have not encountered a single library or program I needed and was not able to install after some research at worst. This means virtually all essential C and C++ libraries mentioned in these posts (I do not…

And if you want something in the middle, get Ubuntu.

right - i'm always a bit extreme :)

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#275

Post by cskau »

swah wrote: post #139

For me the three OSes feel like this: - Windows: snappy until it fucks up, best fonts, Flash runs perfectly, you feel mainstream, pragmatic - Linux: great support for developing, ugly fonts and lousy hardware support, you feel a hacker - MacOS: Youtube makes the MBP hot, never need to boot again, just close/open the lid, good looking apps, you feel modern and cool

Actually I think Ubuntu has made a good push in the fonts area - especially as of lately. The repos contains installers for (all?) the Windows fonts plus they just launched a brand new Ubuntu font which IMHO looks great. The Ubuntu repos are literally stuffed with fonts.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#276

Post by trevelyan »

_jz wrote: post #31
trevelyan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu runs hot on the MBP and will chew through your battery power even if you aren't running it in a VM. So MacOS is Unix anyway, you say? Too bad the default libraries are a pain to upgrade, trivial applications like "locate" and "wget" are missing and you'll have to manually configure stuff like page up/page down if you want the terminal to be useful. I've had repeated issues compiling different "cross platform"…

What do you use for video editing? Just curious, since I have ports installed just to build kdenlive. I haven't had good luck with iMovie (crashing, poor MTS support, bloated AVHDC files, and choppy transcoding). I'm too cheap to buy Final Cut Pro, but would be interested in other options.

iMovie honestly. Don't need much and it isn't really professional-level stuff. But it is a work-related need and I don't know of anything comparable for Linux.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#277

Post by maco »

macco wrote: post #181

Please do Linux a favor and buy a preinstalled: ZaReason, System76. Their machines work great with Ubuntu - unlike many laptops from other vendors. And yes, you get all the software you'll need - it's Debian at least.

wow, our usernames are similar... but yes, +1 for ZaReason. I have two of their systems. The company is a pleasure to deal with.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#278

Post by maco »

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,…

The screen's the most important part? I think it's the keyboard. Typing without looking isn't a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#279

Post by gcb »

qjz wrote: post #145
gcb wrote: post #137

Eeepc 1000. No noise sad. Truly portable. 5h plus battery Do not heat your lap. Got last year for 300. Amazon has now for 700 :( And most important. It does not have CPU to run things like silly flash games :)

What model? I have a 1000HE. Its portability and battery life are great for travel, but its form factor makes it painful for development (without an external monitor/keyboard/mouse).

the pure 1000. i think it's the only one with ssd... never cared much for the others.

it's ok for running vim. :)

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