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The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

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Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#21
post #10

Such articles always give too much importance to the hardware (which is somewhat important, no doubt) and not enough importance to the software. Many people are looking for quality alternatives to Macbooks, Mac Mini, etc (myself included). Mac Mini hasn’t been updated for 4-5 years. So, I started setting up a Windows desktop as a Mac Mini replacement. But when it came to finding all the alternatives to the OS X softw…

Hey, at least you can dual boot!

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#23
post #2

Unfortunately, it comes installed with Windows. edit: of course it runs Windows. It also comes pre-installed with it.

FTA: Most people that I showed the Surface to were impressed by what they saw, but almost always came back to the same thing: it doesn’t run macOS. I’m increasingly frustrated by this because it’s almost always a misunderstanding of how far Windows 10 has come, and how compatible the workflow now is regardless of what you might do for a job. I suspect most people haven't touched Windows since years ago and it's time…

I've tried to adopt the alternative bash systems on Windows, and they are nowhere close to terminal options on OS X (or Linux!). It still boggles my mind why we have to stay within the limits of the cmd.exe UI, with the lack of window resizing, easy copy/paste, and proper font rendering. Then, on top of that, Windows will never have a proper unix-like filesystem. I just can't go back to that.

The only thing windows has going for it when it comes to development is performance. My windows desktop screams compared to my mac, but is relegated to gaming.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#24
post #2

Unfortunately, it comes installed with Windows. edit: of course it runs Windows. It also comes pre-installed with it.

FTA: Most people that I showed the Surface to were impressed by what they saw, but almost always came back to the same thing: it doesn’t run macOS. I’m increasingly frustrated by this because it’s almost always a misunderstanding of how far Windows 10 has come, and how compatible the workflow now is regardless of what you might do for a job. I suspect most people haven't touched Windows since years ago and it's time…

It's everything around baseline development that sucks when using WSL, not WSL itself. WSL itself is really cool. What's not cool is dealing with linters and compiling tools and all the other bric-a-brac that has to cross the Windows/WSL divide. Some of them have been fixed to support WSL, others haven't, knowing which have and which haven't is a crapshoot, and WSL is a third-class citizen at best so good luck waiting on them.

On top of that, all of the little things are wrong. MacOS/Linux aren't identical by any means but I expect (say) important configuration for everything, not just my things, to be accessible via my shell. My shell, by which I mean having to bail out into PowerShell (which is a bad acid trip) or into clicking stuff is just not gonna fly. I am not unfamiliar with or uncomfortable with Windows but it irks the hell out of me to have to bail out of my work environment to start clicking around or to `Start-OddCommands -WithSillyFlags` and there's no reason for it.

When I ditched MacOS, I instead went to Fedora. (Which, I am told, does run quite well on a Surface Book.) There's a Windows partition on my work machine, but it's mostly just so I can run a DAW (Ardour is bleh, don't @ me) for remotely recording audio.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#26
post #2

Unfortunately, it comes installed with Windows. edit: of course it runs Windows. It also comes pre-installed with it.

FTA: Most people that I showed the Surface to were impressed by what they saw, but almost always came back to the same thing: it doesn’t run macOS. I’m increasingly frustrated by this because it’s almost always a misunderstanding of how far Windows 10 has come, and how compatible the workflow now is regardless of what you might do for a job. I suspect most people haven't touched Windows since years ago and it's time…

> I suspect most people haven't touched Windows since years ago and it's time for a serious second look if so.

I feel like this is evidence of living in a bubble. Windows is the dominant OS for anything in a PC form factor (even if you include the iPad Pro in the count).

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#27
post #12

Has anyone managed to get Linux booted on this thing and working well? I've been debating purchasing one, but I am afraid that I'll be stuck with Windows, which, for what I work on, makes hacking pretty difficult. EDIT: Just as a note, I know about WSL (I use it at work), but I would greatly prefer to have Linux working on root. I have a lot of custom systemd setups, and I've become somewhat dependent on XMonad.

There's a run-down of all the Surface devices here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/7kazwp/curren...

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#29
post #10

Such articles always give too much importance to the hardware (which is somewhat important, no doubt) and not enough importance to the software. Many people are looking for quality alternatives to Macbooks, Mac Mini, etc (myself included). Mac Mini hasn’t been updated for 4-5 years. So, I started setting up a Windows desktop as a Mac Mini replacement. But when it came to finding all the alternatives to the OS X softw…

FWIW, the article does talk about Windows vs MacOS and the software ecosystem nearer to the end.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#30
post #12

Has anyone managed to get Linux booted on this thing and working well? I've been debating purchasing one, but I am afraid that I'll be stuck with Windows, which, for what I work on, makes hacking pretty difficult. EDIT: Just as a note, I know about WSL (I use it at work), but I would greatly prefer to have Linux working on root. I have a lot of custom systemd setups, and I've become somewhat dependent on XMonad.

How is your experience with WSL? Do you get stuck in a lot of corner cases with it? Or does it work seamlessly most of the time? Guess not, considering you’d “greatly prefer Linux working on root.”
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