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Introducing Surface Book 2

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#281

Post by y4mi »

jrs95 wrote: post #254
jozzz wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this for software development (assuming yes since we're on HN)? I'm currently in the process of making this choice. Looking at Lenovo T470p/Dell XPS 13/15. If I'm doing linux development is it worth even thinking about the surface laptop?

Google's PixelBook could be a good option if you don't have any need for Windows. It will run Linux easily via crouton.

there are some limitations for software development with crouton though...

basic scripting works fine, but quite a few things fail. The most recent one i stumbled on was kivy [1]. It couldn't start X-Sessions to open any windows.

[1]https://kivy.org/#home

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#282

Post by iamalchemist »

jrs95 wrote: post #254
jozzz wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this for software development (assuming yes since we're on HN)? I'm currently in the process of making this choice. Looking at Lenovo T470p/Dell XPS 13/15. If I'm doing linux development is it worth even thinking about the surface laptop?

Google's PixelBook could be a good option if you don't have any need for Windows. It will run Linux easily via crouton.

Pixelbook does not have a fan. Will that be okay? IDEs suck up a lot of resources and tend to heat up a lot. I was thinking about Pixelbook till someone raise this up. what's your opinion?

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#283

Post by demonshreder »

sangnoir wrote: post #236
kyriakos wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed very odd but true. I understand why developers switched and the reason is probably that most development these days is Web development and OSX is the closest to a Unix os with a polished gui. On the other hand I can't understand why creatives switched to windows.

> On the other hand I can't understand why creatives switched to windows. Apple's neglect.

> Apple's neglect.

Elaborating on it, Custom hardware (esp. GPU) support. DX 11 over Metal. Apple chose not to upgrade OpenGL or implement Vulkan.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#284

Post by markcmyers »

criddell wrote: post #272
markcmyers wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former advertising executive, I can tell you what the problem is here. The writer and his boss who approved the copy aren't addressing the customer, they're addressing the boss's boss. In a dysfunctional organization like Microsoft, communicating up rather than out is how you get promoted. It's a rare Microsoft employee who moves up the ladder by thinking about the customer.

I don't think that's what is going on here. The guy who wrote this (Panos Panay) is the VP in charge of the entire Surface brand. He is the boss.

It's my understanding that Panos Panay reports to Brad Smith, who reports to Satya Nadella. He is a boss, not the boss.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#285

Post by k__ »

markcmyers wrote: post #284
criddell wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's what is going on here. The guy who wrote this (Panos Panay) is the VP in charge of the entire Surface brand. He is the boss.

It's my understanding that Panos Panay reports to Brad Smith, who reports to Satya Nadella. He is a boss, not the boss.

Also, he's a VP, so he will probably not have written it himself.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#287

Post by jrs95 »

y4mi wrote: post #281
jrs95 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's PixelBook could be a good option if you don't have any need for Windows. It will run Linux easily via crouton.

there are some limitations for software development with crouton though... basic scripting works fine, but quite a few things fail. The most recent one i stumbled on was kivy [1]. It couldn't start X-Sessions to open any windows. [1] https://kivy.org/#home

Interesting, I wasn't aware of these issues. I'm pretty much strictly doing web & server development though

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#288

Post by pier25 »

zeusk wrote: post #261
pier25 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But those million win32 applications tend to be really outdated and poor in terms of features compared to the macOS ecosystem. At least that was what I experienced.

Regardless, they're at-least usable and Microsoft cares about backward compat. Just last week I played a game of Age of Empires II with my cousin, a game which was "released" in 1999 on a Surface with Windows 10. While on my MacBook I have issues because every major OS upgrade breaks something and I have to repurchase newer versions or give up if the dev isn't interested/around anymore.

I agree, Windows is much better at backwards compatibility.

OTOH I've found that it's not such a big deal in practice. In my 10+ years as a mac user I've only hit this problem a couple of times. Likewise in Windows I rarely open old outdated software.

That is of course my anecdotal and personal experience.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#289

Post by dawnerd »

usaphp wrote: post #162
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #114

Whenever I fly on business with my macbook/lenovo I am super jealous of surface users, because they can use their machine during take off, as it's classified as a tablet when folded over. Seems minor but it's annoying when you're stuck looking at some crappy tv show or movie for an hour on each flight.

But can you do any real work in a folded mode, unless you are a graphic designer or something.

Can watch movies/tv, browse the web (especially on the new planes with gate to gate wifi).

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#290

Post by wvenable »

shams93 wrote: post #165

Yeah ultimately the os itself has it's limitations, I get more done on a Thinkpad 420 I picked up refurbed for $300 with Ubuntu instead of windows 10 pro. I can run systemd daemons on Ubuntu but trying to run services like postgresql on windows subsystem for Linux is painful with no daemon support it's like a crippled Linux.

https://www.postgresql.org/download/windows/
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