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Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#31

Post by _jz »

trevelyan wrote: post #18
kls wrote: post #6

Yes the MBP is a good machine, and you can get all of the items you listed on OSX. It is a good development platform if you decide to go that route. I have worked exclusively on MBP for the last two generations of my machines. This is coming from a guy that got burnt really bad on the 68-PPC conversion a while back (had basically a brick within 6mo of buying a new 68). That is another story but sufficient to say, I s…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#32

Post by khandelwal »

joezydeco wrote: post #9
khandelwal wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping to avoid Dell. Their laptops (at least the ones I've been familiar with) seem to have poor build quality.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#33

Post by davidw »

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.

Suspend/resume works flawlessly on my E6500. Wireless too.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#34

Post by mironathetin »

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…

You cannot go wrong with a Thinkpad, but you can do better, IMHO.

I enjoyed my last Thinkpad (t40) a lot. Still have and use it after 6 years. But especially with linux, battery life wasn't very good (now the battery is completely dead of course). The fan never stopped.

To answer the question of the OP: yes, it is totally worth to learn Mac OS. First, the effort is small. Second, you will save a lot of admin time. Third, backup is easy, reliable and bootable. This alone recommends Macs as developer notebooks.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#35

Post by tvon »

After ~8 years with Linux as my desktop OS I moved to OSX in '06 and have been very happy. My unibody MBP is by far the nicest laptop I've ever owned or used... I do web development with Django for a living, so it sounds like you'd use the same tools.

But, to each their own...

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#36

Post by retube »

khandelwal wrote: post #3
davidw wrote: post #2

Dell occasionally has systems for sale without Windows, or with Linux preinstalled: http://www.dell.com/ubuntu

I'm hoping to avoid Dell. Their laptops (at least the ones I've been familiar with) seem to have poor build quality.

Seconded. I had a Dell, admittedly a low-end one, and it was dreadful. Crummy build, large pixel size, a ton of bloatware (not that that's relevant if you're going to put linux on it). And the wi-fi under Ubuntu was extremely flaky.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#37

Post by barrkel »

djhworld wrote: post #17
Maro wrote: post #11

On a MBP you can easily run all the software you listed. We use MBP for cross-platform C++ and Python programming. A somewhat complete list of tools we use in our startup: XCode, Textmate, Araxis Merge, Makefiles, python, svn (or Versions), git (or SmartGit), python, vim, joe, OpenOffice, MS Office (the new 2011 version rocks), Keynote, FF, Chrome, Safari, Pixelmator, TexShop, CyberDuck, Dropbox, MacPorts.

'joe'?

It's my favourite ad-hoc in-terminal editor too. Keyboard shortcuts are in the style of the old Borland text IDEs.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#39

Post by adamkittelson »

I can recommend System76 if you go the Ubuntu route. My desktop at home is a System76 Leopard Extreme that I dual boot Ubuntu / Windows, and prior to getting my MBP I was using a Pangolin Performance laptop.

Since getting a MBP I can say that I do prefer OSX to Ubuntu, but I'm a Ruby/Rails dev surrounded by other Apple guys using Textmate so it's the path of least resistance for me for sure.

Re: Ask HN: Best Developer Linux Laptop?

#40

Post by Uchikoma »

Am I the only one who is using a Lenovo machine (X200) and hating it and would do nearly everything to go back to a MBP?

(X200 feels cheap, plastic breaks, lcd dies, battery replaced twice, hibernation does not work all the time, sound problems, logos flew off, ....)

I was using a small Dell laptop at my last job and the quality was much much better than the X200.

Essentially after IBM sold them the quality tanked.

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