MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#181

Post by lynndotpy » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

sem000 wrote: post #62

gnufied wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both a latest generation Thinkpad P1 Gen5 and Macbook Pro 16 inch M1 pro and while it is true that Macbook comes pretty close to being a perfect laptop, I still miss the productivity of a Linux laptop (for backend dev work). From what hardware POV you are correct, I wish though Apple would adopt Carbon Magnesium chasis that thinkpad uses. For same 16inch size, Thinkpad is noticeably lighter. I can happy lug my…

What is your Linux laptop giving you that your MBP doesn’t? And how does it hurt your productivity? Genuinely curious as I don’t see how it can be any different.

For my experience, as a longtime Linux user who got a MBP:

I really miss the desktop environments available on Linux. KDE is great, and even Gnome beats MacOS. You can't even move windows between desktops with a keyboard shortcut on MacOS. The desktop experience on MacOS is a "death by a thousand cuts" situation. E.g. Popup dialogues will rearrange your windows (e.g. if the popup is wider than your window, to remain centered, it will move the underlying window and I'm not joking.) E.g. Mouse acceleration can't be turned off, which makes MacOS pretty awful for any mouse-centric workflows. E.g. Blocking animations that fundamentally can't be turned off.

That's on top of things that aren't necessarily faults with MacOS, such as getting used to different keyboard shortcuts.

On Linux, I get native Docker, up-to-date coreutils (they're different on MacOS), more precompiled versions of software I use, and having the Linux desktop software that I prefer. (Finder is frustrating, Gedit or Kate for text editing is great, GIMP is much nicer on Linux, etc.) I also miss KDEConnect.

I don't use Xcode, but as I understand, updating it messes with git and python.

But the battery life really is amazing enough to make it worth it. I'm really excited for Asahi to progress to a point that I'm comfortable using it.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#182

Post by rsynnott » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #84

dchuk wrote: post #14

It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. I have the first gen MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro (ok maybe they’re not winning the naming game), and it’s a perfect computer. Battery life is literally all day, every single action is instant, I have zero regard for many apps or tabs I have open. It’s just perfect. I have literally traveled with just a 30 watt anker brick for my phone…

> It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. For people who don't mind an ultra-brittle screen or who don't mind paying an extra 20% Apple tax to get their screen replaced when it breaks. Had a M1 Mac. Screen broke overnight. Meanwhile my LG Gram feels way more sturdy and hasn't let me down in years. M1 Mac lasted about 13 months. Not happy at all with Apple asking 680 EUR to r…

... Huh. That is one Apple complaint I've never heard. Had various Mac laptops since 2004 and never seen a screen crack (on my own one; for what it's worth, I do know two separate people whose Apple laptop's screen cracked because their _cat bit it_, but I assume that can happen for any laptop with a sufficiently weird cat).

And, really, a screen is a screen is a screen; any laptop screen is likely to be about as fragile as any other.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#183

Post by rerx » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

_fzslm wrote: post #71

gnufied wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both a latest generation Thinkpad P1 Gen5 and Macbook Pro 16 inch M1 pro and while it is true that Macbook comes pretty close to being a perfect laptop, I still miss the productivity of a Linux laptop (for backend dev work). From what hardware POV you are correct, I wish though Apple would adopt Carbon Magnesium chasis that thinkpad uses. For same 16inch size, Thinkpad is noticeably lighter. I can happy lug my…

iTerm2 and lima [1] with a ARM64 Linux virtual machine w/ Rosetta (so I can still run x86_64 Linux code!) enabled me to fall in love with my MacBook Pro in this regard. i feel more productive than on a Linux machine now. MacOS is not without its developer power tools, if you dig around enough! [1] https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

It would be perfect if Rosetta supported AVX instructions. For instance, I could just install pre-built tensorflow binary packages in a x64 container on Lima then.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#184

Post by Swizec » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

optymizer wrote: post #153

dchuk wrote: post #14

It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. I have the first gen MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro (ok maybe they’re not winning the naming game), and it’s a perfect computer. Battery life is literally all day, every single action is instant, I have zero regard for many apps or tabs I have open. It’s just perfect. I have literally traveled with just a 30 watt anker brick for my phone…

The hardware is indeed great. The software experience is getting worse imo, particularly when upgrading. It used to be rock solid for me. The m1 worked without any issues for 2 months. I upgraded yesterday to macOS Ventura: * Upgrade finished but laptop froze. Hard reset. * On first boot, the new System Settings failed to load icons, then froze. Trying to quit it froze the OS. Hard reset. * I left the laptop plugged…

To offer a counter anecdote: I’ve always had a rock solid upgrade experience in the past few years and remember how something would always break up until around ~5 years ago.

Upgrading used to be an event. Now it’s a meh-fest of clicking a button, waiting a little, and being unimpressed with the new features thinking “why did I even bother? Total waste of an hour”

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#185

Post by bogantech » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

yoavm wrote: post #145

isolli wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really pushed me towards Apple is that Lenovo offers a very limited set of configurations to us Europeans. No way to get the best machine from them, even if we're willing to pay for it.

I have an X1 Yoga that I got here in the Netherlands, and I had plenty of choices when configuring it, including OS. What are you missing exactly?

When I was looking at getting an X1 Carbon, the US site had better options for things like the screen etc

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#186

Post by KAdot » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

hk1337 wrote: post #35

How is development setup on the M2? Specifically Docker and Python. Docker VM has always seemed rather meh on my M1 and installing different python versions with pyenv either goes well or has _a lot_ of workarounds.

macOS 13 Ventura introduced[1] support of running amd64 binaries with Rosetta inside of arm64 Linux VMs when using Apple Virtualization framework.

Latest Docker Desktop and Lima VM can take advantage on the new feature. It makes running amd64 containers significantly faster.

Here is a very short manual how to setup Docker with Lima VM and Rosetta https://gist.github.com/akrylysov/7c1ea3bac409da2758e525f2f8...

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#187

Post by hsbauauvhabzb » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

sem000 wrote: post #62

gnufied wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both a latest generation Thinkpad P1 Gen5 and Macbook Pro 16 inch M1 pro and while it is true that Macbook comes pretty close to being a perfect laptop, I still miss the productivity of a Linux laptop (for backend dev work). From what hardware POV you are correct, I wish though Apple would adopt Carbon Magnesium chasis that thinkpad uses. For same 16inch size, Thinkpad is noticeably lighter. I can happy lug my…

What is your Linux laptop giving you that your MBP doesn’t? And how does it hurt your productivity? Genuinely curious as I don’t see how it can be any different.

>32gb of ram

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#188

Post by rsynnott » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #34

It's worrying that they are shying away from specifying generational improvements or at least comparing to it's competitors. The "fastest Intel MacBook" is not really the competitor for an M2 MacBook Pro, it's a predecessor. But I'd rather hear about generational improvements from M1, especially because both Intel and AMD seem to be making great strides in the low power space lately.

They do give some numbers vs M1s, but most people actually considering buying this will be coming from the Intel ones (no-one replaces their laptop every year) so it makes sense to labour those in the marketing material.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#189

Post by counttheforks » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

jackosdev wrote: post #88

gnufied wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both a latest generation Thinkpad P1 Gen5 and Macbook Pro 16 inch M1 pro and while it is true that Macbook comes pretty close to being a perfect laptop, I still miss the productivity of a Linux laptop (for backend dev work). From what hardware POV you are correct, I wish though Apple would adopt Carbon Magnesium chasis that thinkpad uses. For same 16inch size, Thinkpad is noticeably lighter. I can happy lug my…

I have Asahi Linux installed on mine, it works great including the GPU, I’m mainly developing for ARM64 AWS Lambdas now as well so it’s nice having the same arch. Some things are still missing like webcam, microphone and speakers, but the headphone Jack works and Bluetooth is OK just a bit choppy, incredible project.

So it works great except half the hardware doesn't work and it's entirely unsupported by Apple, to whom you paid a significant premium for the hardware?

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#190

Post by cantSpellSober » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #19

Mikeb85 wrote: post #10

Strange that Apple still isn't offering OLED screens when most other laptop makers are this year...

They tend to not sacrifice longevity over flashy technologies. They migrated to OLED very late in iPhone when compared to other manufacturers, too. The last thing I want is a burn mark on my laptop screen because of static parts of my IDEs and such.

Like the 30-pin connector's longevity? The lightning connector's? Physical Esc keys?