The interesting thing here is that the absolute biggest disadvantage is the MacOS/iOS development. Apple's walled garden seems to be working as intended ;).
One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
121–130 of 372 posts
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#122Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#123I went the same route from Mac to Lenovo Thinkpads. I have not looked back since. Did the Linux swap due to Mac OS X memory pressure issues with virtualization. Basically Mac OS X got a ported feature from iOS where they froze background application memory so that apps would be quick to restart and resume but that did not play nice with virtualization where you want all the memory you can get.
Anyhow since most development is nowadays done for Linux server running Linux on the desktop makes sense. Docker works better on Linux with port mapping.
For the battery time mentioned in the article one can swap batterys on Lenovo and there is a 9 cell battery which should get better run time hours.
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#124I love the idea of having a Thinkpad running Linux. But there are a dozen apps on my Mac that I would miss terribly. DEVONthink, OmniGraffle, and many more. I was thinking about getting a used ThinkPad for Emacs + Org plus terminal only. A companion for writing in Emacs/org and for doing dev work (Python, Lisp, Bash). This article made me revisit that plan. (Been using ThinkPads from 2006-2015 and loved the experienc…
I needed a new laptop and while I’d prefer a MBP I don’t want to buy one right now with the ARM cutover on the horizon. Instead I bought a refurb t460 for like $400 and slapped NixOS/i3wm on it. It’ll hold me over until the ARM release and if I really need anything Mac specific I still have my old MBP.
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#125Cool. I'm running Linux on a Dell Vostro I purchased during their quarterly business sale as my daily driver -- I can't believe the machine I got for the price, and strongly encourage people to look at these sales.. How big of an issue is it to target iOS as a platform on a PC these days with the rise of Flutter, etc? I'm looking to get into app development, but don't have a Mac, nor would I like to buy one if I can…
Depends on the app I guess, but you can get far without needing a Mac with flutter etc. Sadly I think there still is some restrictions for some Apple hardware for the developer part of the app store. I'm not super familiar with that part, but we had some issues with some Apple legal terms which could only be accepted on a authenticated device, which means you need Apple hardware.
No.
Whatever solution you pick for iOS dev: Flutter, React Native, Xamarin etc etc, in the end we will always meet the same thing: iOS SDK. And iOS SDK only runs on Mac, unlike Android.
Unless Apple decide to port their SDK to Windows/Linux (which I believe will not happen), you can't practically avoid Mac.
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#126I would put an asterisk near battery life as a downside, after switching to mpro 2020 13 realized that I overlooked batter life which is 7h at max, 5h if working aggressively (docker, builds), very disappointing. Macs always were laptops with great performance - battery life for me, so be careful with customizations and stick either to defaults or mpro 16 (which is like a plazma TV for me) PS. moving to 14" system76/…
if thinkpad is an option do take a look at X2100: a thinkpad chassis & accessories, but with modern internals. it's basically "Peak Intel", a swan song for x86...
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#127I am also running Linux on Thinkpad (Debian unstable on T440s). As to the battery life, this typically requires some work but I found it is generally possible to get good battery life. I am able to get my T440s to run for total 24 hours with the highest option 9-cell, the built in 3-cell and another 3-cell that came original with the laptop. This I did to be able to work on a long yacht cruise with no extra power and…
> The entire touchpad is a button and you need to press it and try to move your finger while pressing HARD to drag things, for example. Same here (X240) but it still has left and right buttons, although not shown. To drag things around, just keep pressed the lower left side of the pad (near the user's belly not the spacebar) then gently move the right finger around the pad. It works the same for selecting text.
I have an x240 as well. The first thing I did was replace the clickpad with a 3 button trackpad which feels so much better to me
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#128> Can't debug issues in Safari without borrowing a Mac > Can't do iOS development Not legally , no. These can be worked around with a VM, just like with the Windows issue. It sucks, but Apple is never going to support their development toolchain on any other platform. All in all, I think this is a pretty positive review for an "I switched to Linux" blog post. Usually they're more negative about the lack of finish a l…
> Can't debug issues in Safari without borrowing a Mac
Run hackintosh on thinkpads. There are a lot of already completed configs available for both the clover and opencore setups.
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#129What are the cons of mac? for me: - Sluggish UI - Inadequate package manager - Unintuitive ways to install stuff - Slow and large updates - Can't do Linux development - Can't try server tools - Slow boot-to-work time - Hard to add memory and ram - Limited interfaces - Hacker unfriendly - Can't have a minimal desktop - High memory usage of base system
> - Can't do Linux development
How do you figure that? Docker gives you a native linux runtime, and you can use x11 if you're developing GTK/QT clients.
Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)
#130I recently purchased a 16” MBP despite significant personal concerns over the future of MacOS, being a strong open source advocate and Linux paying my mortgage. I did this ultimately for a few reasons. MacOS lets me run Adobe (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc), Fusion360, has a good terminal (iTerm and zsh unix like shell) and Logic. Mac hardware is still some of the best in the business, no other vendors seem to be able to…
> laptop can’t run the internals at full power when not connected to AC
How is this worse than a MBP that can’t “run the internals at full power” when it doesn’t take breaks to cool off (except maybe outside in winter?)? (Edit: my currently adjacent sibling comment claims that MBPs don’t run at full power off AC either, so their internal utilization seems strictly worse. Reminds me of how Apple arranged with Intel to buy a weaker (and presumably cooler and cheaper) variant of the Xeons available to anyone else for iMac Pros).
> I can SSH to wherever I want and get ‘the Linux experience’.
Depending on your definition of ‘the Linux experience’. For me X is half the GNU/Linux/*BSD experience: dwm, sxhkd, keynav, xcape, the Compose key, simple highlight + middle click/Shift+Insert copypasta. (Edit: xteddy, xeyes, xcowsay, buckle, etc. too).