The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer • Hacker News Board

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#101

Post by soulbadguy » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #80

For a developer, this laptop sucks. ... but, why would I use such harsh rhetoric? That's ecause the most important component of a laptop is not its CPU; it is the --==[[ keyboard ]]==--. A laptop without a keyboard with decent key travel and tactile feedback simply deters you from using it. People who do not write much (code, documents, etc.) - can perhaps make do with point-and-click-oriented laptops. We cannot. Tha…

Yeah i have to call BS on this narrative that somewhat the keyboard is the most important thing for developer. Writing code is not writing documentation or writing books : Most of time spent not on typing letter... Debugging, reading code, thinking about a code etc... are more important. I have yet to see a case where typing speed is a limiting factor for coding. Loads of non-dev information workers type way more than dev...

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#102

Post by soulbadguy » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #92

"You're a software engineer who loves Windows... you COULD switch to a Mac... looking around... Microsoft's own Surface Laptop" What kind of person is writing that article? Sounds like someone who's identity is first and foremost a rich guy from the US.

Most of us on here are ... what's your point ?

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#103

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #15

jillesvangurp wrote: post #13

Like the author, I also do a lot of Kotlin development and use intellij and pycharm a lot. This sounds like an awful laptop to do that on. Kotlin is great but it's compiler is rather slow and you end up waiting for that a lot. So, faster is better. I noticed about a 2.5x build speed improvements when I upgraded my cheap Samsung i5 laptop (a temporary thing I used for a while) to the M1 14" Mac Book Pro. On a typical…

Silly question ; am I the only person who still uses a desktop / tower machine? Feels like I'm a huge minority these days, but when it comes to needing processing power and juice it still feels it provides budget and upgrade flexibility no laptop can match.

[deleted]

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#104

Post by callalex » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

rhamzeh wrote: post #63

jklinger410 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop God, I have experienced the exact opposite with Linux on laptops. Battery management is so bad I am considering moving to a Macbook.

Based on my experience, I can tell you the grass is not greener on the other side. Forced to use Mac for work, the previous Macbook Pro would lose charge _while plugged in_! The battery goes empty, it shuts off and I wait for it to recharge while off. They recently changed mine to an M1. Battery is much better than the previous generation and could be good, so long as you're not using it for anything. As soon as the…

Sounds to me like you’re using a low wattage charger that was not designed to be used with your pro-grade machine.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#105

Post by CameronNemo » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #73

soulbadguy wrote: post #54

"high-end" arm windows machines never made much sense to me. It seems that the main appeal is longer battery life, but looking at the recent CPU from AMD, and the rumors of the next CPU from intel.It's seem clear to me that x86 is making more progress in reducing power consumption than arm is making in performance. And i wouldn't be surprise that in a couple of year we get very efficient x86 cpu's from both AMD and i…

AMD is getting here, certainly... the latest 7430HS mini PCs still use 6-8W at idle though, which is quite a bit more than ARM still. I've been using an m1 air as a personall laptop and when traveling rarely even think about having to plug it in... for my limited use with the screen around 60% brightness, I can use it all day and then some. Mostly text/email or remote editing (wireguard, ssh, vs code).

Isn't 7430HS a Zen3 chip? Presumably Zen4 will be better. Remains to he seen, though.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#106

Post by deng » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

People forget that it is not just the processor that consumes power. The reason the new MacBooks are so efficient is not just because they are ARM-based, it is also because they have incredibly energy efficient screens, WiFi, RAM, SSDs, etc. They can achieve this through their sophisticated manufacturing process, with highly integrated components directly soldered onto the board, a fact that is widely (and correctly) criticized for making repairs and expansion nigh impossible, but it is also true that this is much more power efficient than what you can achieve with a more modular design. I have a Thinkpad L14 AMD, it consumes well below 10W for casual browsing/reading mails under Linux. I would wager that maybe 1/3 of that is consumed by the CPU. So even if you had a CPU with 0W consumption, I would just increase my battery life by a third, at least for that kind of usage.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#107

Post by jeroenhd » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

dantaro wrote: post #38

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be because he couldn't get IntelliJ to work native in a way that let him access WSL, ( "It also wasn't able to access WSL, meaning I was locked out of using Linux tooling all together." ) So that tooling was awkward. If he was stuck using windows, maybe best bet would have been to run an X server and run IntelliJ etc inside WSL itself.

Hi, author here, you are correct! WSL tooling was locked out for a long time due to IntelliJ not being able to access WSL until the native build came down. Unfortunately, WSL on ARM still has some bugs around the VM hard locking itself when waking from sleep. It's frustrating, because when it does work it's fantastic.

Have you tried a standard VM? It sucks that WSL2 isn't working right yet, but IntelliJ has some pretty extensive tooling for working over a (virtual) network. It's possible that the sleep issue plagues normal VMs as well, but maybe it's worth a shot?

You'd lose out on things like hardware accelerated graphics but reading your description it sounds like that's not really something you rely on anyway.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#108

Post by callalex » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #80

For a developer, this laptop sucks. ... but, why would I use such harsh rhetoric? That's ecause the most important component of a laptop is not its CPU; it is the --==[[ keyboard ]]==--. A laptop without a keyboard with decent key travel and tactile feedback simply deters you from using it. People who do not write much (code, documents, etc.) - can perhaps make do with point-and-click-oriented laptops. We cannot. Tha…

Please keep in mind that humans have a huge variety of anatomy, movement, and strength. While I don’t doubt that high travel keyboards are more comfortable and painless for YOU specifically, I can assure you that your experience does not speak for everyone. Extrapolating your keyboard preferences to every body shape is like expecting an Olympic gymnast to be comfortable in a pregnant baryatric person’s pants.

Please consider that most people don’t care about long key travel, and that some people such as myself actually strongly prefer short key travel as it reduces pain for me. Also, have you used this keyboard or are you judging it based on one zoomed out marketing image?

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#109

Post by pram » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #93

jimaek wrote: post #7

I can't wait for proper high end ARM laptops with Microsoft's backing and support. I'm like the author, I consider the M MacBooks very impressive but I dislike the OS itself. And it was very unexpected that Chrome underperform so much, without it it's a complete deal breaker for me.

As if those will come any time soon. The big ARM scare of 2017 is already over. ARM is not competitive. By the time they catch up in the server and laptop markets, RISC-V will have eaten their lunch. All they have left to do is run marketing campaigns against RISC-V and watch their inevitable decline.

2033 the year of RISC-V on the desktop?

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#110

Post by LoganDark » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 8:09 PM UTC

gyulai wrote: post #45

nirui wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same where wondering if it performs the same/better under Linux. I imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop, I mean, the fans don't even spin up that often under Linux unlike the near constant fan chorus Windows gives me. Also, a computer without a single fan so I can comfortably use it on my bed? With possibility to replace it's SSD? It sounded a lo…

> performs the same/better under Linux ...yeah, I was wondering that too. This seems like a job for a Gentoo system, compiled from the ground up with "-march=native". Would love to know how that would turn out performance-wise, in comparison to Windows.

There's also KISS Linux, which I find quite approachable compared to Gentoo. I know, sounds totally backwards, but I think it's really cool how simple it is to manage your repositories and make your own packages. And yes, you recompile the whole system with `-march=native` during the install process :)

GKISS if you want glibc.