Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

blog.hypergeometric.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 177 posts

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#101

Post by blrgeek »

ars wrote: post #11

Why are people voting up this article? There is nothing interesting in it. I'm genuinely curious about what people are finding interesting here.

It's the story of my life - I got Apple initially because I wanted a 'Unix' laptop without the hassle of dealing with Linux drivers for laptops. The Powerbook G4 was awesome for this.

Now if Linux drivers for laptops have finally settled down after 11 years, I can see myself move back to Linux. That's an interesting alternative if the hardware is as good as Apple hardware and less expensive.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#102

Post by bryanlarsen »

X-Istence wrote: post #52
fingerprinter wrote: post #12

I have a Lenovo x220 running Ubuntu 12.04. Aesthetics of the machine aside, it is the best setup I've ever used for a development machine. Ubuntu is by far (we're talking leaps and bounds) better than OSX for dev work and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the keyboard on the x220. I don't have a XPS 13, but I can see any reasonable machine loaded with Ubuntu being a developers dream. Honestly, any machine loaded with Ubuntu these d…

How is Ubuntu by far better than OS X for dev work?

There are lots of little answers to that question. For instance brew is a third party addition to OS X whereas its equivalents in Linux-land are integrated into the main OS. Brew does a surprisingly good job, but it still has to work around the fact that the main OS wasn't installed with brew.

But there are two big meta-reasons:

The first one is that since much of Open Source in general is done to "scratch ones on itch", Linux can be seen to be "by developers, for developers". This is generally seen as a negative for non-developers, but for developers it is a positive.

The second one is that if you're a web developer, your deployment platform is going to be very similar to your development platform. This means that you only have to deal with half the number of platform specific bugs and configuration. More importantly, you discover these platform specific bugs and configuration issues sooner.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#103

Post by nicholassmith »

emilis_info wrote: post #58
mxxx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed. the guy barely even mentions why he decided to move to linux, just that he did. or do people just like the sentiment?

Freedom of choice, being able to fix things yourself, ability to work on the same OS your server uses, being able to run old programs or on older/cheaper hardware -- all these and other things are not sentiments. Why are you guys complaining about a guy choosing Linux over Mac? Is it because of the sentiment? :-)

They're complaining because the article is light on the why he made the choice, just that he made the choice.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#104

Post by iand »

antihero wrote: post #81
eckyptang wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything Lenovo usually does. I've got a T61 and an X220 tablet here which everything in Ubuntu 12.04 works fine. The only problem I've had was connecting to an SSTP VPN but that was resolved easily with an ssh tunnel.

Avoid low end consumer. My G575 basically sucks.

I love my G570. Great value for money. My expectations aren't higher than the price I paid for it.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#105

Post by kami8845 »

expralitemonk wrote: post #73

I go to a coffee shop often and among other things, I notice people's machines and how they interact with them. Two observations: 1. People with non-Mac machines always plug their laptop into AC power before starting work (unless it's a netbook). My previous Windows laptop had battery life of about 2 hours while my Macbook Pro has about 5 hours. 2. People with non-Mac machines have to be very careful where they sit,…

This is pretty crappy generalization.

Much more accurate would be to say "people with shitty laptops" or even better "people with laptops that have short battery life or glare screens".

I have a non-Mac and I don't have to do either of the two things you listed. That's because I put great care into selecting my machine and because I don't like paying out the ass for Apple's overpriced laptops, although I know a lot of people who do. (I do have an iPhone 4S, but not because of the hardware)

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#106

Post by takluyver »

X-Istence wrote: post #52
fingerprinter wrote: post #12

I have a Lenovo x220 running Ubuntu 12.04. Aesthetics of the machine aside, it is the best setup I've ever used for a development machine. Ubuntu is by far (we're talking leaps and bounds) better than OSX for dev work and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the keyboard on the x220. I don't have a XPS 13, but I can see any reasonable machine loaded with Ubuntu being a developers dream. Honestly, any machine loaded with Ubuntu these d…

How is Ubuntu by far better than OS X for dev work?

For example, developing with Qt in Ubuntu: apt-get a few packages and you can get started. In OS X: install XCode (> 1GB), set up macports, install Qt, wait several hours for it to finish compiling... (I know there are other ways to get Qt installed, but another tool I was using expected the macports layout)

Also, diversity: on Ubuntu, you either install .deb packages or compile stuff yourself. OS X has three competing packaging systems (macports, homebrew, fink), binary installers and manual compilation. Files can end up in very different places according to how they're installed.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#107

Post by nicholassmith »

Well this is a bit of a weird post. It feels almost that light on content and discussion that it comes across a bit like a promo for Dell. I'll assume it isn't, as everyone should get the benefit of the doubt. I'm weird. I develop Linux applications, and I primarily do it on a Mac as I'm happier on OS X than most Linux distros.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#108

Post by lloeki »

wisty wrote: post #60
blrgeek wrote: post #17

1. What's the battery life like? 2. Are all devices supported with drivers - Bluetooth, 3D, graphics, sleep/wake, 802.11n, webcam, internal mike, ... 3. Does it do instant sleep/wake like a Mac - 100s of times without crashing/rebooting? 4. How does it handle external displays? Plug and play like a Mac? Does it handle display rotate? The internal display is only 1366x768 ? 5. Does it detect a headphone and switch fro…

I use Linux on a VM, running under OSX. OSX is ... finicky ... with dev tools. Apple does the compilers, and the bolt-on distributions (brew, Macports, fink) seem to have trouble keeping things compatible. Linux distributions don't end up falling behing their own compilers every time the compiler gets updated. I'd rather stay off the bleeding edge compilers, and have everything just work. There is the "Apple tax", bu…

> OSX is ... finicky ... with dev tools. Apple does the compilers, and the bolt-on distributions (brew, Macports, fink) seem to have trouble keeping things compatible. Linux distributions don't end up falling behing their own compilers every time the compiler gets updated.

Seem to? From first hand experience, while MacPorts shows its age and cruft, homebrew just rocks. I just recently upgraded a SL+XCode 4.2 machine to ML+XCode 4.5. Zero issues. The only problem is old or broken software that assumes C == GCC in some way (e.g ruby 1.8). I've had more — although infrequent — problems with ArchLinux updating to latest GCC.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#109

Post by takluyver »

fierarul wrote: post #62

> Two days ago I got my Dell XPS 13 as part of a Dell beta progam called project Sputnik. This makes it unclear if I can actually buy this thing (in Europe). >I got a special version of Ubuntu, with some kernel patches, and some patched packages for sleep and hibernation. Why isn't this in the official Ubuntu distro? I don't trust binaries from Dell.

Looks like they're bringing forward some fixes that the regular kernel is more cautious with. That makes sense, because they only have to worry about one set of hardware. There are PPAs with the patched packages:

https://launchpad.net/~canonical-hwe-team/+archive/sputnik-k... https://launchpad.net/~canonical-hwe-team/+archive/sputnik-p...

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#110

Post by eddy_chan »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #102
X-Istence wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Ubuntu by far better than OS X for dev work?

There are lots of little answers to that question. For instance brew is a third party addition to OS X whereas its equivalents in Linux-land are integrated into the main OS. Brew does a surprisingly good job, but it still has to work around the fact that the main OS wasn't installed with brew. But there are two big meta-reasons: The first one is that since much of Open Source in general is done to "scratch ones on it…

Totally agree with this post, I make CRUD-dy web apps and my dev box is a mirror of my production stack (nginx, apache, postgres, python/django + associated tools) with the desktop stuff like browsers, chat clients bolted on.

Having a desktop like this means I get to practice all the intricacies of sys-admining (nginx configs etc) just by turning my machine on and running my apps on localhost and it shows when I compare my sysadmin skills to all my peers using MBPs

Don't miss anything from Macbooks except the battery life but I'm on a bootstrapped budget so my beater will have to do until we get enough customers to pay for a new computer.

Post reply on HN