Live data from Hacker News

I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

blog.johnozbay.com

71–80 of 187 posts

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Framework has always been appealing to me as a Mac competitor

If I could choose only 1 criterium to select a laptop, it's the quality of the trackpad. So far, I haven't tried anything that comes close to a Macbook.

*criterion. criterium is not even a typo, it’s an actual word but it doesn’t mean what you think it means, unless you’re planning to use your laptop while bicycling.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#72

Going from complaining about Apple not having enough polish in the fine details of their UI to suggesting we all switch to Chromebooks is so completely inconsistent that there must be other motivations. In one post they're complaining about things like Apple having the search bar in different locations in different apps, and in the next post they're seriously trying to tell us that a laptop that requires modifying th…

"After my last blog post I received tons and tons of emails from people mentioning that they switched to X or Y because of Liquid Glass, and much like them, I switched away from the Apple ecosystem thanks to these ongoing issues as well." Then within 2 sentences: "So this blog post is about my painful journey trying to find a nice piece of hardware that works and feels just as good as Apple's hardware as a web develo…

A Chromebook gets you the elegant UI, touchpad gestures, slim vertically integrated system architecture and the reliable sleep mode of a MacBook without Liquid Glass.

Plus Chromebooks have the better keyboard layout IMHO.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#73
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean closed as in it is more difficult to install whatever you want on a ChromeOS machine as opposed to a MacOS machine.

What is it that you want to install on ChromeOS that you are unable to? All of the usual Linux and open-source stuff works fine on the built-in Linux environment on it. Possibly even a little better than MacOS in some cases, since you don't need to worry about Apple app signing. There's not literally nothing you can't do, but the list is a lot shorter than most people think, especially those who haven't really tried…

You can technically run anything you want on both without resorting to hacks, it's just a question of how annoying it is.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can run Arch proper in UTM.app on macos...utm is available on the app store or open source, and wraps the apple silicon hypervisor.framework. it works fantastic magic. i had dual booted Asahi for a year or so, but really for no good reason once i realized UTM existed.

Do you use x64 emulation with UTM? If so, how's the performance?

No. It's all native Arm. In the UTM app, when creating a new VM, there's an option to say it's going to be "Linux" (generically at that point), which exposes a checkbox which allows you to specify use of Apple Silicon hypervisor.framework, and specifically _not_ x86 emulation.

I use hypervisor.framework, never use x86 emulation, and the result is great. Tested with both Fedora for ARM and Arch for ARM (perhaps CachyOS's bundling of Arch works there, but i did it lower level because i'm an old nerd).

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#75
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that you want to install on ChromeOS that you are unable to? All of the usual Linux and open-source stuff works fine on the built-in Linux environment on it. Possibly even a little better than MacOS in some cases, since you don't need to worry about Apple app signing. There's not literally nothing you can't do, but the list is a lot shorter than most people think, especially those who haven't really tried…

You can technically run anything you want on both without resorting to hacks, it's just a question of how annoying it is.

On a Chromebook you can install the Linux Dev VM with 5 clicks in the settings and get a fully featured Debian VM.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"After my last blog post I received tons and tons of emails from people mentioning that they switched to X or Y because of Liquid Glass, and much like them, I switched away from the Apple ecosystem thanks to these ongoing issues as well." Then within 2 sentences: "So this blog post is about my painful journey trying to find a nice piece of hardware that works and feels just as good as Apple's hardware as a web develo…

A Chromebook gets you the elegant UI, touchpad gestures, slim vertically integrated system architecture and the reliable sleep mode of a MacBook without Liquid Glass. Plus Chromebooks have the better keyboard layout IMHO.

Oh I misread the author's complaints about hardware as "software." Ok assuming the author hates liquid glass enough to switch cause of that, and doesn't have the same standard of polish for hardware, at least the post is self-consistent.

I don't believe the claims of Lenovo hardware (esp trackpad) being as good as a MacBook's, but he thinks it is, so up to him. The keyboard layout is annoying cause control-C is both copy and kill.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use x64 emulation with UTM? If so, how's the performance?

No. It's all native Arm. In the UTM app, when creating a new VM, there's an option to say it's going to be "Linux" (generically at that point), which exposes a checkbox which allows you to specify use of Apple Silicon hypervisor.framework, and specifically _not_ x86 emulation. I use hypervisor.framework, never use x86 emulation, and the result is great. Tested with both Fedora for ARM and Arch for ARM (perhaps CachyO…

This is what I thought, but idk why the literature about this is never clear that it's ARM Linux only.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can technically run anything you want on both without resorting to hacks, it's just a question of how annoying it is.

On a Chromebook you can install the Linux Dev VM with 5 clicks in the settings and get a fully featured Debian VM.

I'm willing to bet it's easier to set up a Linux VM on a Chromebook than on a Mac. But the other side is that anything not explicitly requiring Linux will work natively in macOS, where you also get a nicer terminal. Like I've not needed a Linux VM in years, and the author doing web dev probably won't either.
Post reply on HN