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

“This is not the computer for you”

samhenri.gold

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 390 posts

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#141

Post by Paracompact »

jayd16 wrote: post #79

The Neo seems kind of nice but I don't really see how it's more significant than "a nice low end computer." The article reads like its fire from Olympus but a nicer screen and trackpad is only incrementally better than what was available in Chromebooks and cheap PCs. Personally I think a the Steam Machine will have a better chance to cheat a general computing device into the home of someone not looking for it. The Ne…

I didn't really read it as a specific advert for this computer, but rather a nostalgic defense of cheap starter PCs in general. It gave me some hope for the future.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#143

Post by wolvoleo »

realusername wrote: post #132
hollerith wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one thing lacking in the utilities included with MacOS (which come from BSD).

Is it still shipping with that ancient bash, the awful Iterm and without a package manager? I haven't used OSX for a while.

No. Zsh is now standard, though it still included an old optional version of bash. Apple hates GPLv3 that's why they moved away from bash.

The terminal app is not iterm. But Apple's own Terminal.app

And no there's no package manager but there's brew and macports.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#144

Post by throwawaytea »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #67
jayd16 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not that hard. Someone who can follow a tutorial can do it. 5 seconds of googling will get you an answer to "install blender on a Chromebook"

> It's really not that hard. Of course not. I could do it in a coma. I've also been using computers since 2004, and you're probably similar.

I've been using computers since 1991 (I'm 42, from 1984), and to be honest this stuff is getting harder and more confusing, not easier. Mostly because it keeps changing, and not based on any logic towards improvement. Sure I'm good at getting my questions and problems solved now, especially with AI, but I don't believe I have the ingrained mastery I felt after a while with computers in the 90s.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#145

Post by prmoustache »

raincole wrote: post #133

What's so special about this machine? Is there no comparable $599 Windows or Linux laptop for kids to buy?

As new I have no idea but I think I have never spent that much on a computer as I always buy second hand. 400€ has always been my max. I honestly don't know why I should spend more, the brand new laptop the company I work for gave me don't run significantly faster than my 7y old laptop and this has pretty much always been the case in the last 25 years.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#146

Post by prmoustache »

sedatk wrote: post #134
Gigachad wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is ARM Windows usable these days?

Very much so if you don't care about gaming . x86-64 emulation has already been great, and 99% of popular apps have native ARM64 versions. The only exception was Discord for me for a long time. I used to use an unofficial wrapper called "Legcord" instead. But, now even Discord has a native Windows version. I mostly use my laptop for software development + browsing. I haven't tried gaming, but I feel like it'll suck f…

Isn't Discord just a web app? Why would you need an ARM64 specific version in the first place when you have a browser?

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#147

Post by prmoustache »

GianFabien wrote: post #23
lelandbatey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't downvote, it certainly did for me. My first computer was a MBP 13inch from 2009, as I was apple obsessed like the person in the parent article. Time passes and I realized I really didn't like either Windows or Mac, and for the past 10 years Ive been linux only. It really does happen, even if rarely.

Good on you for rising up to the ranks of Linux/BSD. You just need to recognize that not everybody aspires to be competent with lower-levels of hardware and software that Apple makes that much more difficult. Most Apple users are content to use apps written by others and that is as far as their interest goes. An analogy is the car market. Most people don't care how the car works, etc. They just want to get to places.…

> You just need to recognize that not everybody aspires to be competent with lower-levels of hardware and software

You don't really need that to use Linux.

People should stop copy/pasting urban myths or stories from the late 90's. We are in 2026 and one can perfectly buy a laptop preinstalled on linux with full support and just find the apps they need from an "app store" which in this case is just the frontend for the flatpak and packages manager. Picking up an app from Gnome Software is no different than installing an app from the play/apple/microsoft store.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#148

Post by mbgerring »

He’s right. I built a hackintosh from a PowerMac G4 motherboard I bought off of eBay with my saved-up babysitting money when I was 12 or 13 because I was absolutely desperate to have a machine I could edit movies with, I couldn’t afford a real Mac, and I read on the internet somewhere that this was the cheapest way to get one. I knew lots of older brothers who were “into” computers (all of them for gaming) that thought I was an idiot, because building my own mac made everything ten times harder. I didn’t care. I was obsessed.

This is a $599 computer with purpose-built architecture for (barely) running (small, underpowered, near-useless) LLMs. There are children saving pennies for this machine that will do great, horrifying, dangerous things with these computers. I can’t wait to see the results.

Re: “This is not the computer for you”

#149

Post by haritha-j »

I don't think this is about the macbook neo. I don't think the comments need to devolve into a mac vs. linux argument. It's simply an ode to that kid pushing hardware to the limits, and learning so much along the way.

What I feel a bit sad about is, I was that kid. Growing up in a 3rd world country, running games that i didn't own on hardware that ought not run it, debugging why those games don't work, rooting my phone and installing custom OSs just for the heck of it. Man I had so much time to tinker.

Now I have amazing gaming hardware but I barely touch games. When I do, its on steam. I've swapped out the endless tinkerability of android with the vanilla 'it just works'-ness of the iphone. That curiosity took me far, but I seem to have lost it along the way.

Post reply on HN