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Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

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Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#211

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #200

** "I don't want to use a Mac" ** "I've had these problems with Mac" Reasonable response: Cool, use what works for you. EDIT> Here are some suggestions that match your constraints. Annoying response 1: You should reconsider because Mac works great for me. Annoying response 2: Your problems aren't real problems. Annoying response 3: Let's live debug your problems in this thread to see if they're real problems. Guys. I…

It's every Ask HN thread, every time I want to ask a question here I give up because I find myself listing the obvious, requirement-breaking answers that I know will come but that I don't want to see.

It's not like stack-overflow where often the users are beginners and don't know what they want and it's sometimes helpful to point out XY problems. Here people are technically literate and know what they want yet the requirements are still ignored.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#212

Post by microtonal »

weberer wrote: post #194
microtonal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell XPSes are good too Unless you plan to put them into a bag or backpack suspended: With regards to transporting your laptop in a bag or backpack, safety should be your primary concern. You should always turn the laptop OFF [...] Under no circumstances should you leave a laptop powered on and in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag, backpack, or in an overhead bin. The laptop will overheat as a res…

There's a BIOS setting you have to change in a lot of laptops nowadays. The default, power hungry sleep mode is usually labeled "S1" or "Windows modern standby". True sleep mode is often labeled "S3" or "Linux", confusingly enough.

If it's an AMD laptop or older Intel. Intel has deprecated/removed S3 support in Tiger Lake-U:

https://www.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/k0fm7z/system76_l...

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#213

Post by fortran77 »

FormFollowsFunc wrote: post #48
microtonal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell XPSes are good too Unless you plan to put them into a bag or backpack suspended: With regards to transporting your laptop in a bag or backpack, safety should be your primary concern. You should always turn the laptop OFF [...] Under no circumstances should you leave a laptop powered on and in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag, backpack, or in an overhead bin. The laptop will overheat as a res…

It’s a problem with Windows. I’ve a dual boot MacBook Pro and I run into that issue only when I put the laptop to sleep when running Windows. I don’t have the issue when running MacOS. You would think after 30 years Microsoft would figure out how to keep a computer asleep.

If you run it on supported hardware it works just fine. The Macbook Pro is simply not open enough for Windows or Linux to support it.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#214

Post by smoldesu »

martinald wrote: post #28
Casteil wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not mature enough for a daily driver. It's an alpha, and there are significant things that don't work yet including HDMI, displayport, thunderbolt, GPU acceleration, video acceleration, and sleep/deep idle. https://asahilinux.org/2022/03/asahi-linux-alpha-release/

I've rarely seen a Linux laptop with solid display out, GPU acceleration and sleep/wake ever though...

Really? Unless your machine is completely unsupported by the kernel, I find that hard to believe. Even Nvidia machines "just work" these days...

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#215

Post by cosmiccatnap »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #43

Lenovo T14s here (AMD version). Stuff works out of the box on Debian, except for the LTE modem which works after a bit of a struggle. Battery life is better under Windows but I haven't bothered working out why, probably need to set up some power management stuff. Associated dock drives three 1920x1200 screens at the same time as the built-in one.

Fyi, they pushed a bios update that fixed my battery issues. It's not m1 good or anything but after the update it's average and sleep works correctly without draining it.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#216

Post by l30n4da5 »

tacker2000 wrote: post #183
martibravo wrote: post #176

Asus TUF Dash Gaming 15 user here: I cannot recommend it enough. - Intel i7 H series processor (best mobile Intel chips) - Upgradeable RAM (currently at 24GB) - Intel Wifi 6 - Nvidia RTX 3060 - FullHD Screen with 144Hz - Comfortable keyboard with backlight - Two M.2 slots, laptop came with 500GB but added an extra 2TB. - Good connecticity: HDMI, Ethernet, 3 full-size USBA 3.1 ports, 1 Thunderbolt port. - Laptop runs…

Looks good but the deal breaker here is the screen. 1920x1080 is just not enough these days.

lol, all I have are 1080p screens.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#217

Post by croutonwagon »

Have you considered System76?

https://system76.com/laptops

Another one i found interesting is the framework laptop. Its completely modular.

https://frame.work/

And apparently their firmware is opensource.

https://frame.work/blog/open-sourcing-our-firmware

That said if you are looking to play games or have a dedicated graphics card your options will be severely limited.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#218

Post by cruano »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #200

** "I don't want to use a Mac" ** "I've had these problems with Mac" Reasonable response: Cool, use what works for you. EDIT> Here are some suggestions that match your constraints. Annoying response 1: You should reconsider because Mac works great for me. Annoying response 2: Your problems aren't real problems. Annoying response 3: Let's live debug your problems in this thread to see if they're real problems. Guys. I…

Should have put that on the title

I mean, it's already kind of stupid to want to avoid something the whole industry uses, from big tech to startups. In particular, when you have a very hard set of requirements that historically no one gets right except for you know who.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#219

Post by smoldesu »

idontwantthis wrote: post #142
teva wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Docker is very slow on MacOS

How slow? Using it every day here on MacOS with no difficulties. Using Rancher Desktop as well.

Go boot up a Linux machine and see for yourself. APFS has been a Docker bottleneck for years, and thats before we even get to the kernel issues...

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#220

Post by chrisseaton »

Flankk wrote: post #191
ezfe wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would not be motivated by using some closed source, walled garden product from a company with business practices I don't like. Most of the Development flow (and even most of the non-dev flow) happens in Open Source areas: - Safari - Apps you download, like VSCode - Command line tools The areas that aren't open source (The Calendar app, file browser) can be replaced as you choose. I won't tell you to use a Mac, I j…

That's a bit of a ridiculous argument. Xcode is not only closed source, it is required for publishing to the App Store. You can't modify the hardware or the software. It's a virtual prison.

> You can't modify the hardware or the software.

It’s a tool to get a job done - I don’t need to modify it.

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