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Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

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

#491

Post by Joeri »

soylentgraham wrote: post #90
amcrouch wrote: post #68

ThinkPads every day of the week. I have a T430 that I have owned for about 6 years and a new P52 which is my daily work machine. Both running Linux with zero issues. I liked the comment below describing Hotels (Mac) Vs home (ThinkPads). It's true that if you can be bothered to tweak and install some stuff then you end up with something of your own. Your way. Never used Macs as old enough to remember the "no one got s…

"Never used macs" maybe you should try them. I'm still using a 2013 MBP, only issue is that I had to finally replace the battery about a year ago. MacBooks used to be good. Can you still buy a 6 year old thinkpad?

There are a ton of thinkpad t440p’s floating around from that era. They have upgradable everything (even a socketed cpu). You can buy a low-end model for €150 and soup it up to perform similar to current gen laptops.

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

#492

Post by vips7L »

zarkov99 wrote: post #478
gherkinnn wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have been working on Windows machines (C# ftw) for a while now. I hate it. Everything. Kafkaesque configuration UIs, horrible window management, mouse acceleration is off, font rendering is atrocious, the updates make me unreasonably angry, mixed design systems leave me confused, File Explorer isn’t even trying, many apps are downright insulting, and the entire thing just reeks of PMs in ill-fitting suits prodding th…

Don't forget the file system and how locking by a rogue program can stop your build (and your workflow) until you figure out which program has a handle to the file you want to rebuild. The lack of scriptability of most tools. The perpetually behind C++ compiler. The lack of a proper terminal. The fucking ads. The broken updates. The relentless ratchet to control your machine and how you use it.

The new terminal is quite good.

https://github.com/microsoft/terminal

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

#493

Post by FpUser »

Freaken wrote: post #341

I might be an outlier in the dev community, but I’m on my second Alienware 15" laptop running Ubuntu + Xfce and I really love it. It’s fast (my current laptop has an i9 in it), reliable, offers multiple possibilities for extensions and the new M form factor does pretty good when it comes to bulkiness. Of course they are bigger than an XPS 13, but if you are like me and mostly work from office and home, it’s not reall…

Al my laptops are gaming type. They can work properly without overheating/throttling

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

#494

Post by xfer »

msbarnett wrote: post #474
ColanR wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're using OSes that are trying to cater to a diminishingly technical crowd. I read (somewhere, a year or so ago) that the generation now in their late 20s/early 30s was the last one that actually needed to care about how their computers worked, because their computers occasionally needed to be fixed. Generally speaking, I think that the newer generation has likely never been exposed to a computer tha…

> > people are all happy to talk about how easy linux is to customize until you broach the subject of changing keybindings to use a mac-like scheme (using command for gui interactions as a rule of thumb, readline bindings everywhere there's text entry) > BTW, I'm using i3, and I think it would be (relatively) super easy to change the keybindings around to what you're describing. Really? How does one go about configur…

How does that work? If i implement my own editor using sdl2, how will it know? Are you sure it's not just cocoa specific? If that's the case it's possible for gtk too.

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

#495

Post by dotancohen »

sbuk wrote: post #477
dotancohen wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some very vocal, very opinionated people are on a crusade to remove the idea that man with woman, or woman with man, is the default configuration for sex. They actively downvote any comments that suggest that M-F is "normal" all over the internet, from Reddit to StackOverflow. I would say it's been happening for a while but the past few months have been very extreme.

Nope. It’s about objectification.

Hi, I'm the OP of this "controversal" opinion.

There is nothing objectifying anybody here. I really do not see how anyone is getting at that. In what way have I made anybody an "object"?

With all the respect in the world, I understand what you are crusading for. But you are on a witch hunt, and actively making people your enemies who would otherwise support your cause.

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

#496

Post by dangus »

izacus wrote: post #482
dangus wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not even close to being the only company selling laptops with soldered RAM. All the popular competitors to the MacBook Pro have soldered RAM including the XPS 13 and ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Really the truth of the matter is that for 95%+ of people, RAM requirements have completed plateaued in the last 5-8 years or so.

> Apple is not even close to being the only company selling laptops with soldered RAM. They were certanly the first to implement that and starters of the wider trend.

Certainly? Were they verifiably first, or is that a guess? What about ultraportables like the Sony Vaio UX series?

I would argue that consumers demanding portability is not a “trend.”

And the only way to deliver true portability is to combine components. e.g. smartphones.

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

#497

Post by _qbjt »

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…

My work laptop is a Thinkpad T480 running Fedora. It’s a wonderful machine but not without some flaws:

1. The thermal situation on newer Thinkpads needs to be called out. Even with undervolting, there doesn’t seem to be a sweet spot where you can avoid regular throttling without the CPU hitting unsafe temperatures. I’ve heard it can be somewhat remedied by applying more thermal paste to the CPU than the meager amount Lenovo provides out of the box (doing it yourself voids your warranty). Ultimately, I think there is a clear regression in the thermal design between Lenovo’s newer laptops and classic Thinkpads like the X200. The internals just aren’t designed to properly dissipate heat and while it’s nice that the fan is quiet, I wish it did more to cool the device. This seems to be a common issue not just with the T480 but other newer Thinkpads like the X1 Carbon. If anyone has any advice here beyond iuvolt, throttled etc. please let me know.

2. My model has a WQHD display and I use an external monitor with the same resolution but a lower DPI. Linux in 2019 is still a bit dicey when it comes to mixed DPI setups. GTK+ 3.0 applications on Wayland scale perfectly between displays but Firefox is a bit buggy and Electron apps are laughably bad. It has come a long way for sure but there’s still work to be done.

All that said, I’m coming from a 2017 MacBook Pro that had way more issues from the failing keyboard to dead speakers and screen burn-in. I’m happier with the Thinkpad and enjoy using it as my daily driver. It’s a solid machine and the keyboard and port selection are perfect. No issues with running Linux on this device either. Everything just worked on a clean install and I’m able to do everything I did before on macOS whether it be software development, multimedia creation or just personal computing. The “hotel vs. home” analogy you used is dead-on and speaks to what I’ve always loved about Linux. I’ll take an OS that lets me tailor my own software experience over the proprietary equivalent any day.

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

#498

Post by tristanperry »

sandreas wrote: post #383
tristanperry wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Clevo N131WU and whilst Clevo's are good for the price, the poor battery life and loud fans (without their Windows-only 'Control Centre' software) would prevent me buying one again. It's definitely not a MBP competitor.

Cool, thank you for this feedback. Are you aware of NBFC ( https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc )? Not that this is relevant to Clevo beeing no competitor but perhaps you can take control of your fan - afaik it is known to work on linux systems.

I'll check that out thanks. I had heard that a few other fan controllers don't work but NBFC looks promising.

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

#499

Post by gigatexal »

saghm wrote: post #414
gigatexal wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have had some exotic edge cases then because I’ve never run into this situation. MacOS is unix-y enough to compile your own binaries like a John Siracusa does. And if you’re a dev the Mac is still a much better platform for getting paid than any other platform (until ElementaryOS takes off...). I use a number of really cool apps to do things I would get likely for free on Linux like magnet for window manage…

> I use a number of really cool apps to do things I would get likely for free on Linux like magnet for window management I'm not sure I understand your point here; is the fact that you need to use third-party apps for these things being described as a selling point, or is the argument just that you can still find solutions for things that might initially seem like they're missing?

Keeping with the analogy I’m saying that everything is there and polished and clean and works and if I want to put a spin on things or make things even better I can.

The same can be said for Linux but I find OSX so far more productive for me and the eco system is so nice everything fits nicely with my other idevices

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

#500

Post by gherkinnn »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #480
gherkinnn wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have been working on Windows machines (C# ftw) for a while now. I hate it. Everything. Kafkaesque configuration UIs, horrible window management, mouse acceleration is off, font rendering is atrocious, the updates make me unreasonably angry, mixed design systems leave me confused, File Explorer isn’t even trying, many apps are downright insulting, and the entire thing just reeks of PMs in ill-fitting suits prodding th…

People don't wear suits at Microsoft, even PMs. Some of my best friends are PMs, and they were offended. The rest is all true though.

Did you explicitly ask them about doughy hands?

In all fairness, the old Mac vs PC ads have left a permanent image in my mind. And them integrating Office in some (quite cool looking) earbuds just confirms it.

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