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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?

#601

Post by croutonwagon »

kellogs_aran wrote: post #497
croutonwagon wrote: post #217

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.

Hi. OP here. I read some of the previous HN threads on System76 and just laptops generally and it seems like these won't be a good fit for me now. Maybe later when both products are a bit more mature.

Yeah understandable.

We all have our own requirements that change up our own decision.

For example i CANT stand large laptops. 12.5-14" is my max. That excludes a lot of options though.

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

#602

Post by rootusrootus »

kellogs_aran wrote: post #449
banal00 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These posts are annoying, IMO. Reviews and blogs posts about them are everywhere by like minded readers, and this is the discourse such posts bubble up every time here. Guys. I mean. Seriously. It’s a laptop. It’s not worth a request for comments every week.

Hi. OP here. I did do some reading before posting. Here are some of the threads I had read before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28861949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28216287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28023345 None of the threads seemed to have a consensus e.g. some swear by the Dell XPS 13, others say the laptop has been a crap experience more…

> None of the threads seemed to have a consensus

That probably answers your question ;-). Along with the fact that you found multiple previous discussions. There is no consensus to be had, everyone will have their own particular definition of 'good' and the variance is so wide that you'll just have to figure it out for yourself.

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

#603

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

I highly recommend you just start buying laptops (plural), install different Linux distros on them, see how they work, return them if they have issues. There's just too many weird combinations of chipsets and hardware configurations and power profiles etc etc. You will spend all of your time looking for "good hardware for a good price" and end up with crap Linux support.

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

#605

Post by nicoburns »

emptyfile wrote: post #409
kayodelycaon wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> result of some marketing tactics Apple employed for decades Or perhaps people really like macOS and their value system is different. I don't think a lot of developers are buying macs due to marketing. Also, Linux attracts the same fanatic behavior. If you like linux, you don't notice see how many people are pushing it. If you like macOS, you're more likely to notice the people pushing linux because you disagree wit…

>I don't think a lot of developers are buying macs due to marketing. I've never seen a developer with a macbook in my country. The idea sounds absurd. Unless you need Final Cut or whatever, Apple is considered a status brand in many parts of the world.

Anyone targeting iOS absolutely has to use macs. And a lot of agencies have some developers who target iOS and just standardise on everyone running macs to simplify their IT.

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

#606

Post by princevegeta89 »

Linux is great. I'm with you. As someone who's been on Linux for 8 years I can say that if going with Linux be prepared to experience driver compahility issues and random broken things although the occurrence chance is small. Be prepared to spend time to deal with them. Also be prepared to have suboptimal drivers that don't fully Make use of your CPU and GPU and their power management functions. In some cases you can also be prepared to not be able to find good software for the use case you'd be looking for.

Or just go on with Windows + WSL.

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

#607

Post by er4hn »

helmholtz wrote: post #520
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Like all the "just use Org-Mode" comments. God, if I see one more Org Mode recomendation I might just burst!

Didja know you can use org-mode to handle this as a todo? For example:

** TODO: Install NixOs and learn how to use declarative configuration. ** TODO: Burst from hearing about the power of org-mode.

Then you can use C-c C-t to rotate the TODO's as you carry them out!

(All comments tongue in cheek from a vim amateur user)

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

#608

Post by nzealand »

Freaken wrote: post #276

I can vouch for the Framework. It doesn't feel beta at all. I'm running Xubuntu 21.10 on it an it rocks. Someone created a repo with salt scripts which works all the kinks of the laptop under Ubuntu. The only thing I needed it for was to fix the touchpad issue after resume from sleep (it would be at max acceleration) and to enable hibernate (just note that you must disable secure boot first). https://github.com/light…

If you want longevity, for under $2k, you should not rule out the Framework because it is "beta."

They have a store of easily replaceable parts. You can replace almost anything that breaks.

I have already replaced the keyboard. Don't ask.

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

#609

Post by jasoneckert »

cs702 wrote: post #245

As a longtime user of System76 servers, desktops, and laptops, I can recommend them. * The hardware has always been "more than good enough." I mean, you can always nitpick about some or other detail, but the machines work, they work well out-of-the-box with Linux, and they last a long time. We still have eight-year-old machines that are humming along. * Support has always been outstanding at everything from answering…

I second System76 for these exact reasons as well. I like their hardware and Pop!_OS customizations, but I love their company and support.

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

#610

Post by er4hn »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #606

Linux is great. I'm with you. As someone who's been on Linux for 8 years I can say that if going with Linux be prepared to experience driver compahility issues and random broken things although the occurrence chance is small. Be prepared to spend time to deal with them. Also be prepared to have suboptimal drivers that don't fully Make use of your CPU and GPU and their power management functions. In some cases you can…

I primarily use Pop_OS (Ubuntnu derivative) on a Thinkpad X1 as my development laptop. I'm able to run a few containers and VMs, vscode, some utils, spotify (via it's electron app), bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth headphones, with no issues. Pretty much all of the hardware stuff like bluetooth and wifi was supported out of the box.

I normally work next to a power outlet, but if I don't have one my typical dev setup (vscode, spotify, some bluetooth, some containers running) gives me somewhere between 3 - 6 hours, which is pretty good imo.

When I was feeling cheeky I setup Steam and got some basic games running through the Proton compatibility layer. That seems to have broken my ability to do updates due to some issues with Nvidia drivers and I'll look at that at some point.

Overall though, an X1 with Linux can get you really far these days. I do have Windows around to dual boot if I need to but it is much slower and burns through battery like a jet plane through fuel.

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