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The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

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Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#121

Post by einpoklum »

soulbadguy wrote: post #102
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 ?

> Most of us on here are ...

I hope that's not the case... as most developers are not USers, and while they may make a decent living, I doubt most developers would consider blowing thousands of dollars on a Mac (regardless of whether they like it SW/HW-wise). And who buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#122

Post by einpoklum »

soulbadguy wrote: post #101
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 tha…

It's true that if a laptop doesn't have a monitor, you can't use it to read code. But - you don't need an ultra-perfect color reproduction, super-low refresh rate etc. on your monitor to read code. So if your laptop has a TN rather than IPS panel - that might be consideration but nothing like decent keyboard or not.

And debugging we do with our brains mostly :-)

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#123

Post by oneplane »

hospitalJail wrote: post #95
oneplane wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on what performance bracket you are targeting. Scripting and interpreted languages, JIT next and VM after that (i.e. JVM, CLR), native code after that and optimised low-level code after that would all have very different reactions to 'good CPU' vs. 'bad CPU'. A 'slow' process (±10s) taking 1 second longer won't seem that much slower, but a fast process (±100ms) taking ten times as long does defin…

I need to do everything locally. Air gapped computer with confidential stuff.

I that case your situation is likely irrelevant for the masses. It also still matters what performance bracket you're targeting.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#124

Post by ChainOfFools »

LoganDark wrote: post #116
ChainOfFools wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was astonished at the amount of ink, or pixels wasted by this ridiculous and completely manufactured distinction on the part of inept tech "journalists" and bloggers who had to find something non-technical to identify a pecking order among phones in order to attract readership who didn't understand the more subtle distinctions between features that affect actual usage of the phone. The only other ridiculous argumen…

I hate thin and light so, so much. People say "vote with your feet" and "just don't buy the stuff you don't like", but you can't exactly buy nothing when there are no options you like, because what if you need a laptop anyway? So you end up having to buy something "thin and light" which is a signal to the OEM that people want more thin and light even if all they wanted was a laptop.

Unfortunately the phrase vote with your feet is too often misapplied either by the hopelessly idealistic at one end, or by the toxically cynical at the other.

particularly those who are well aware that you have two feet to work with while their side has paid influence wrangling a stampede of cattle in the other directiin.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#125

Post by soulbadguy »

einpoklum wrote: post #121
soulbadguy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Most of us on here are ... I hope that's not the case... as most developers are not USers, and while they may make a decent living, I doubt most developers would consider blowing thousands of dollars on a Mac (regardless of whether they like it SW/HW-wise). And who buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird.

> as most developers are not USers

Yes, but this a english speaking forum, from a mainly US based incubator, so the audience is self-selecte... Nothing against dev from other part of the world.

> I doubt most developers would consider blowing thousands of dollars on a Mac

Mac are consistently the most selling laptop... so clearly someone is buying them.

> And who buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird.

Agree. Big mistake, but this one is on me :)

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#126

Post by olliej »

dantaro wrote: post #40
jasaldivara wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my own experience, Chromium browser (which is the base for Google Chrome) works much better (faster) than Firefox on my Pinebook Pro (ARM, Linux). But I think the author is using Chrome under emulation, so bad performance is expected.

Correct, I didn't grab the ARM Chromium build, only Chrome. If you want to avoid using Edge then Chromium or Firefox is the way to go.

Given edge is just a chromium wrapper, why avoid it? Just ecosystem issues? (Password managers, etc?)

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#127

Post by LoganDark »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #124
LoganDark wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate thin and light so, so much. People say "vote with your feet" and "just don't buy the stuff you don't like", but you can't exactly buy nothing when there are no options you like, because what if you need a laptop anyway? So you end up having to buy something "thin and light" which is a signal to the OEM that people want more thin and light even if all they wanted was a laptop.

Unfortunately the phrase vote with your feet is too often misapplied either by the hopelessly idealistic at one end, or by the toxically cynical at the other. particularly those who are well aware that you have two feet to work with while their side has paid influence wrangling a stampede of cattle in the other directiin.

I mean, some otherkin have (/identify as having) four paws. But that's still not enough to do anything lol

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#128

Post by nalllar »

rhamzeh wrote: post #5

I'd be much more interested in the Linux situation on this laptop. Most of the UI applications I use casually or CLI apps are available on ARM (I have them running fine on a Pinephone, so the experience on a laptop will only be better). But not sure how the dev workflow would be: Podman, IntelliJ, Sublime Text, etc.. And some casual stuff like Calibre, Thunderbird, Joplin. Oh and how much would the battery life impro…

I run Linux on it, it works but you need a non mainline kernel (github.com/steev x13s branches iirc) and a dtb in the EFI partition

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#129

Post by rsynnott »

> Chrome is slow and frustrating to use, with delayed animations and noticeable input lag, it's such a frustration that I entirely gave up on Chrome in favor of Edge which runs natively.

This is kind of surprising, because Windows for ARM has been around for _7 years_ (I'm ignoring ye olde Windows RT here, because everyone else did). I got an ARM Mac Mini a couple of months after they launched; at that point, while there was still a good bit of stuff with poor or no native support (most annoying: IntelliJ; don't think it got native support for about six months), native Chrome was already available.

I suppose the difference is that third parties don't see Windows for ARM as a serious product, but there's a definite chicken and egg problem there.

Re: The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer

#130

Post by nine_k »

jklinger410 wrote: post #72
nine_k wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does your `top` say? What does your browser's performance tool (e.g. `about:performance`) say? I went from a constantly-overheated Linux laptop to a completely calm Linux laptop, on the same hardware, distro, and DE. Checking for unnecessary processes that eat CPU, spurious ACPI events, overly-heavyweight browser tabs goes a long way. Making sure the browser uses hardware support to play YouTube is another heavy…

So the Mac has battery saving built in to the OS. You are doing a lot of reverse engineering to achieve something other software/hardware does automatically. And to be specific, I suffer from bad hardware/software communication. On a linux laptop, no less (System76, which I would never recommend). Linux S3 sleep is not hardware sleep, I lose a lot of battery there. WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity either has to be bat…

I run the OS of my choice on hardware of my choice in a way of my choice (that is, not Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora). The small amount of tweaking I have to do to get the experience tailored for me personally is completely worth it, besides other, less tangible benefits like "free as in freedom".

If I were fine with someone else making all these decisions for me, because making them myself is more painful than accepting someone else's not entirely comfortable decision, I'd go for an Apple device, no doubt.

Tweaking the OS to play nicely with particular hardware is key. Apple are very good at it. I suppose e.g. System 76 also tweak Pop OS to run especially smoothly on their hardware. Linux is very much ready for that: when I worked at Google (2011-15), I had a Linux laptop with a Google's internal variety of Ubuntu, adapted to a relatively few hardware models they used as desktops and laptops. It worked basically flawlessly, and my T420 had like 6 hours of battery runtime browsing and coding. All I had to customize was the GTK theme and such.

Maybe something like "tweak packs" that adapt Linux to some very specific widespread hardware could be a hit.

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