Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#481

Post by gurkendoktor » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

jhoechtl wrote: post #244

aviraldg wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your co-workers not have issues with HiDPI support on Linux? I've heard it's not the best experience and can require quite some fiddling to get working correctly.

HiDPI on Linux is pretty much non existent. I am telling from experience. I have booth a decent 4K external monitor and a HiDPI IPS internal display. The only setup which is ok in the sense of least horrible is Gnome mutter Wayland with experimental per monitor fractional scaling enabled. And this one is only ok if you can restrict yourself to the few ported pure GTK3 Gnome apps. Which means not that much. No Firefox…

HiDPI on Linux is only broken if you need fractional scaling, or different per-monitor scaling factors. If you stick to screens that work well at 200% (e.g. 4K on 24"), then current desktops will work just fine in my experience.

That sounds like a draconian restriction if you are coming from Windows 10, but OP is switching from macOS. Macs have traditionally used either 100% or 200% as well (except for the latest-gen MBP).

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#482

Post by sxldier » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #38

I went through this last year. I looked at Macbook Pro, Dell XPS15 and Thinkpad T470P. In the end I went for the T470P (i7-7700HQ (4 core/8 thread) w/ 2560x1440 screen, 16GB of RAM (upgraded myself to 32GB)) and the bigger battery (pretty much no optional with a 35W TDP processor). I tried the XPS15 but the keyboard was bad and the fit and finish wasn't awesome. I've had zero issues with linux support or the machine…

This!!

I couldn't agree enough. I went with the T470p, i7700HQ, 32GB RAM, and 1TB SSD. This this is amazing.

I unfortunately must dual boot just in case I need to use software or services that require Windows. I just wiped their default installation with Windows 10 Education edition, gave it 256GB of space, then installed Arch on the other partition.

I mainly use Arch and have only used Windows for the first day or two of having the laptop. I get around 8-10 hours of usage, similar to you, and everything is just awesome. Even while running a VM or two the battery like is still good!

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#483

Post by aagha » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #194

I’m on my 4th Thinkpad T-series - T520, T530, T450s, T460s - each one was a a winner. I ditched the T5XX series when they borked the keyboard layout by adding a numpad. Used to run Ubuntu, now I run Debian, stable or testing depending on point in release cycle at install time. I plan to take another look at Ubuntu now that they gave up on Unity. A coworker is happily on the T470s (first USB-C in the series). I always…

If you also get an account at perksatwork.com, you can get 30-45% off a T-series.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#484

Post by roscoebeezie » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

MrMorden wrote: post #166

roscoebeezie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X230 user here (non-IPS). The touchpad isnt just crap, it’s unusable. I’ve also had issues with non-intel wireless card.

Which non-Intel card? The Atheros ones should work fine; Realtek makes hot garbage that should be avoided at all costs. (If it's a non-Lenovo card you'd need to disable the BIOS whitelist, but that's easy enough to do.)

Realtek.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#485

Post by locusm » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #194

I’m on my 4th Thinkpad T-series - T520, T530, T450s, T460s - each one was a a winner. I ditched the T5XX series when they borked the keyboard layout by adding a numpad. Used to run Ubuntu, now I run Debian, stable or testing depending on point in release cycle at install time. I plan to take another look at Ubuntu now that they gave up on Unity. A coworker is happily on the T470s (first USB-C in the series). I always…

Lisa Gades review of the T480, T480S and X1 Carbon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOsERJzMhLc

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#486

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 5:39 AM UTC

merb wrote: post #447

nitrogen wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a good GPU you can use the xrandr commandline tool to set up display scaling, so your secondary low-DPI screen is rendered at high DPI and scaled down. Then you only need one DPI setting for your DE.

Well, it‘s good that it „could“ work, however i expect it to work without searching the Internet for xrandr configs. (And as said newer Weston/Wayland work way better)

I agree; I post the fact that its possible more as a condemnation of the UI for not getting it right.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#487

Post by runjake » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 3:21 PM UTC

With all its warts, the new machine should be significantly faster than your 2012 with a SATA SSD, especially if memory swapping is involved. It sounds like there's something wrong with it.

That said, every time this thread comes up (about weekly, but I ain't complaining) people recommend Thinkpads (eg X1 Carbon) and Dell XPS 13 laptops.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#488

Post by theyinwhy » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #133

I recent got a 15 inch Dell Precision. I’m running a recent Ubuntu. I don’t recommend. It constantly throttles the CPI. I get lots of PCIe recoverable errors. The USB bus runs out of available throughout. Plugging anything Displaylink is a disaster. The camera/microphone is below the screen, which sucks more than I expected. It takes 2 hands to open the laptop. It is possible to plug in the power supply such that com…

What precision have you got? I have a m3800 running Fedora 27 pretty smooth. Trackpad support is better than on Windows to my surprise. Additionally it clogs on Windows but does not on Linux so that's a plus.

Wayland is working fine, hdmi-out, no prop. Have not found time to test the dp however.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#489

Post by therealdrag0 » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #259

CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #194

I’m on my 4th Thinkpad T-series - T520, T530, T450s, T460s - each one was a a winner. I ditched the T5XX series when they borked the keyboard layout by adding a numpad. Used to run Ubuntu, now I run Debian, stable or testing depending on point in release cycle at install time. I plan to take another look at Ubuntu now that they gave up on Unity. A coworker is happily on the T470s (first USB-C in the series). I always…

I'm a huge fan of the X1 Carbon

X1 Carbon 3rd gen has been my personal laptop for 3 years and it's my favorite PC laptop.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#490

Post by senjindarashiva » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 5:43 AM UTC

Personally I would definitely avoid the modern mac-books, I bought one to try it out and after replacing two keyboards in a period of roughly two months. This only solved the issue of the keys getting stuck, it did nothing to the feel of the keyboard itself. So I finaly gave up and sold it to replace it with a Lenovo T470 which isn't as good looking but it does seem a lot more durable, and the keyboard is a lot better. The only thing I miss is back-lit keys, which apparently is available but I missed it in the checkout...