Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#251

Post by dekhn » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #186

mherrmann wrote: post #48

I switched from MBP to a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home [1]. In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. At home (=on Linux), you need to do the dishes yourself but there's no external agenda. It's simply yours. I'm very happy with the switch. Though I'm on (Debian+) Xfce now instead of Ubuntu…

> I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home This is very apt. If we've all grown out of our parents' basements when we left /., then let me share my own analogy. When SSHing into different servers I used to bring my .vimrc and .bashrc along with me, because how could you live without them? Likewise for switching computers, you bring along your config files. When a new job required me to be at l…

Hi, a little feedback from a wise person who has been on the internet for a while: while you probably thought this was a clever analogy, you would do a lot better not saying things like "I might stumble a bit and touch her in ways she doesn't like".

try to avoid gender-specific analogies in computing. You may think you are being clever, but you're really just making yourself look like a cad (And not everybody will give you this feedback directly. They will just stop talking to you).

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#252

Post by jmmcd » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #189

Symbiote wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stretching this analogy even further: With Linux, we have a choice of over 20 different housemaids and lawn-cutting robots, though choosing between them is difficult at first. Most lawn robots can also sweep patios or shovel snow, so if you move to a different climate you can use the same tools.

> Most lawn robots can also sweep patios or shovel > snow, so if you move to a different climate you > can use the same tools. I thought that the UNIX was was to one job, well.

Yes, but the point of Unix is that sweeping leaves and sweeping snow are the same task, when viewed in the right way.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#253

Post by cytzol » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #48

I switched from MBP to a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home [1]. In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. At home (=on Linux), you need to do the dishes yourself but there's no external agenda. It's simply yours. I'm very happy with the switch. Though I'm on (Debian+) Xfce now instead of Ubuntu…

> In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things.

I've heard this over and over — that Macs are locked-down, uncustomisable machines — and I don't agree with it at all.

I use replacements for almost all the built-in apps. I use a custom launcher. My editor config Git repo is approaching ten years old, and my shell config Git repo is almost eight. There are standard interfaces to per-application Preferences and keyboard shortcuts. When I sit down to use someone else's Mac, I have no idea how to use it!

What changes am I missing? The only thing I can think of is that I can't use a different window manager or a different kernel, but I'm fine with those already.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#254

Post by awalton » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

drevil-v2 wrote: post #5

Slightly OT however for what it’s worth the new 16inch MBP with a redesigned non-butterfly keyboard is supposed to be available soon. I would suggest you hold off any laptop decision until then.

Err, have you ever bought a first-gen Apple product? Not something you walk into lightly... Apple has a tendency to let customers find their flaws rather than actually test for them and shake them out.

I'd rather not volunteer $3000 to be a guinea pig for Apple's keyboard design gremlins. If they went back to the 2016 model and just slapped a new motherboard inside and made the battery larger, then yeah, it'd be a no brainer. But I can't imagine them being that smart about it given the past few years of evidence to the contrary.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#255

Post by fauigerzigerk » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #181

gigatexal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me the hotel then because I want to spend my time doing work not having to do laundry or cut the lawn.

Stretching this analogy even further: With Linux, we have a choice of over 20 different housemaids and lawn-cutting robots, though choosing between them is difficult at first. Most lawn robots can also sweep patios or shovel snow, so if you move to a different climate you can use the same tools.

And all the robots run Linux as well, so you better start customising those first in case the package maintainer doesn't share your conviction that lawns and carpets are not the same thing in every respect :)

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#256

Post by derriz » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #48

I switched from MBP to a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home [1]. In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. At home (=on Linux), you need to do the dishes yourself but there's no external agenda. It's simply yours. I'm very happy with the switch. Though I'm on (Debian+) Xfce now instead of Ubuntu…

I tried this switch (2015 MBP 13 to top-spec XPS 13) about a year ago and was not so happy with it. The reasons that I remember:

- Unless watching movies (not something I used it for) the wide screen aspect ratio was a big step down for productivity. IDEs, browsers, etc. all feel very cramped compared to on a more square 13" MBP.

- With Ubuntu pre-installed, out of the box, the sleep/hibernate mode used about 25% battery per 12 hours of sleep. I was able to configure a working sleep mode but this is the sort of basic functionality I expect to work on a high-end laptop.

- Multi-monitor - with mixed DPI - just never worked and I tried every suggestion I could find.

- Overall battery management was poorer - probably not Dell's fault as I expect this is an issue with the way Linux applications are written. A regular pattern was re-starting applications whenever the fan would start whirring up.

- This could be an issue with our set-up but I had to write a script that ran in the background to refresh the WiFi connection. There was some ARP issue that I wasn't able to (nor had time to) fully debug.

- This is pretty subjective, but I found the keyboard to be cramped an unergonomic.

I actually wanted to like this as I've primarily used Linux on my desktops for a couple of decades.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#257

Post by tasuki » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

ratiolat wrote: post #223

tasuki wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, when I wrote ThinkPad I meant T or X series! First time I hear the X1 Extreme is worse quality wise - I was thinking it'd be my next machine... like in a couple of years. Do you have more info?

Two examples: 1. No drainage system (like in X and T series) 2. Screen hinge becomes loose in less than a year (anecdata) Edit: in order to remove battery, you have to remove the whole bottom cover.

Thanks for the info. Nothing worse than loose hinges!

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#258

Post by alexandercrohde » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

Aside from all the bitterness about ports, touch-bars, lock-in, blah-blah, I have a sincere question. Does anybody know a comparably DURABLE competitor?

I have 99% confidence I could knock my macbook air off my bed (while on) 100 times in a row with 0 consequences. I've never had a key come off, had the screen flicker, had a battery problem, had an overheat.

I'd be curious if anybody thinks there's any other laptop comparably reliable.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#259

Post by fortran77 » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

Windows 10 on good hardware is very, very nice.

My advice is "don't fight windows". I've seen many people try to make Windows like Unix. Don't. Use Windows versions of things, not things compiled under Cygwin or MinGW. Learn to use Powershell and Powershell scripting language.

I do development (C/C++/CUDA/Erlang/Python) all day long on Windows 10 and in addition use desktop applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud.

No problems whatsoever. My main machine -- a Surface Book -- has had no issues. It sleeps, hibernates, manages power, perfectly. The keyboard feels good and is dirt tolerant. (I also have a lightweight travel notebook -- a lenovo yoga -- that "just works" though it's a little underpowered for major development work)

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#260

Post by nabusman » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

jen_h wrote: post #241

Surprised not to see more mentions of the Asus Zenbook here — I switched from a MBP to a Zenbook running Ubuntu four years ago, and haven’t looked back...sleek, light, fast, beefy specs AND it’s endured my abuse pretty well. It’s starting to finally show its age, I switched to a Dell for a week after my adapter died, but went straight back to it once I was able. 13” screen and I still preferred it over the Dell (spee…

I bought a Zenbook a year ago but the trackpad was pretty much unusable. Though Ubuntu 16.04 worked with minor tweaks.