People seem to rave about their MacBook Pros. Is it easy to make the switch from Ubuntu? Do I easily get all the software I'll need (svn, git, django, python, vim)?
Essentially I think, my question is, is the experience on a MBP so much better, that it's worth having to learn the MacOS platform?
Day 1: Ooh, pretty.
2-3 days: I fucking hate iTunes. Luckily ports install mpd works.
1 month: Ooh, the pretty magsafe connector saved me from dropping it when I tripped over the wire.
1.5 months: Arrgh, finally numpy works.
2 months: I miss XMonad.
3 months: Fuck, random C/C++ library (e.g., amqp_lib, boost for a while, quantlib, some Fortran medical imaging libraries) doesn't work. Or maybe it would work if I messed around with it more. Neither do many Haskell libraries (e.g. HFuse). I never managed to get postgres working either, though I've heard others have.
4 months: I want to get work done. Open up virtualbox, boot ubuntu server in a VM.
2 years later: load linux onto a thinkpad. Woohoo!
[edit: I am being a little unfair to the macbook. It has one fantastic feature which I still miss: keynote + LaTeXit + that little remote control. This makes pretty and very effective scientific presentations. OpenOffice Impress is not in the same league. It's less relevant to me now, since I'm no longer an academic mathematician.
Also, I don't mean to be unduly negative on macs. They just didn't satisfy me as a development box.
Lastly, things might have changed recently. I gave away my macbook early this year.]
I think Homebrew is fairly new. If it works, I'm glad, but it didn't exist a few years back. So, a disclaimer I should have included in my original post: things might have changed in the past year.
The package manager I found useful was virtualbox + apt-get.
This, granted, wasn't through homebrew; I wonder if that would have worked back then
The biggest problem with OSX is that, for a unix-based system, it's so un-unix alike in key places that it's frustrating.
I've been looking at some cheap Walmart/Frys PCs to install ubuntu on and develop.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1713 issue #6 , "strain relief issues"
kb
Perhaps if you mostly keep your laptop on your desk this wouldn't be a big deal, but it rules them out for people who like to move around.
Advantages of an x200s over a MacBook Pro 13": - high screen resolution: 1440x900 - smaller and lighter - I can change the HDD very easily - one USB plug more - the x201s also has support for Intel Core i7.
Disadavantages: - Battery life, I guess - Speakers, but doesn't matter for business users - Webcamera, whose lank on TP is quite strange
DVD writer is personal preference. I explicitly don't want it in laptops.
From a strictly techical perspective, although more loosely business one, choosing a Thinkpad x20*s over a Macbook Pro 13 is a no-brainer.
For me, I don't do much in the way of using iTunes; I set up a play list, press play, minimize it, and enjoy listening to music while I do other things. Maybe I'm not a music player power user?
When I import my music folder, iTunes copies all the files to it's own private directories, using the filesystem as an index. Thanks, but my music is already arranged the way I like.
iTunes doesn't play flac or ogg. And when I rip a CD, it wants to save it in some proprietary flac-like format (which, as far as I know, does not work on non-macs).
I enjoy controlling my music from a phone/tablet/other computer. Shameless plug: http://github.com/stucchio/DJ-Pirate http://cims.nyu.edu/~stucchio/software/djpirate/screenshot1.... http://cims.nyu.edu/~stucchio/software/djpirate/screenshot3....
iTunes + iPod also has some extremely unpleasant anti-features: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1202
(Note: this may not all still be true, haven't used iTunes since 2007. )
I myself tried to switch, but gave up after about a week. One of the main reasons was the iMac's boot time. After having used Fedora and Ubuntu, I found it unbearably slow. Was my experience just an anomaly or is this the general case?
The primary issue is that it is SLOW. I have an i7 MBP that everything flies on except iTunes. Now, to be fair iTunes seems to work fine when just playing music. I have a decent library (30GBs +) that it handles okay. The problems arise when doing anything else with iTunes like podcasts, movies, updating apps, or anything having to do with ITMS.
Apple has made iTunes the centerpiece of their entire ecosystem. One would think that they would have at least tried to optimize it while throwing everything and the kitchen sink in featurewise.
I now run Ubuntu on a Thinkpad and that "Just Works" for development more than the Powerbook ever did.
It's even worse if you're running Linux on the MacBook. You have to fiddle with a mysteriously named keyboard preference ("Key to choose 3rd level") to get even the Alt+3 combination to work - and once it does, you can no longer Alt+Tab to switch between windows. Fortunately you can choose a different key; the best compromise I've found so far is to the right Alt key. That way you can enter '#' symbols and Alt+Tab back and forth, but it turns what should be a single keystroke into a two handed combination.
That and the lagging OpenGL support are why my next computer won't be a Mac.
Your reference to 3rd level keys seems to refer to an international keyboard. Is your keyboard not a U.S. layout?
That's the best of both worlds for me: mac hardware, OSX for my wife and ubuntu for me. Perfect.
Macs are truly not right for me - if I gave up and switched to linux 3 months in, I'd never have known that.
That being said almost all the developers I know use MBPs. Just not me. I was CPU constrained for the work I was doing, wanted to easily upgrade my hard drive, and spent all my time in OSX in XMonad anyway. So making "the switch" was simple for me.
EDIT - adding my one X201 complaint
No built in digital video out (W.T.F.) I'm sure this is to accommodate some suit who has to attach to projectors. But feels like the past. If you shell out for a docking station you'll get DV but otherwise you're out of luck. (This is not an issue with Lenovo's larger laptops like the T410 etc.)
- Low screen resolution.
- Very tall screen (especially for a 12" - due to the huge bezel) so it won't open comfortable in the back of an economy seat.
I ended up with the bottom of the range Vaio Z series instead (1600x900 res 13.3" screen that is more than an inch shorter than the X201, with HMDI and VGA out). I run Ubuntu in a VM 99.9% of the time. That setup is working really well for me and I actually like the keyboard at least as much as the IBM one.
Running Linux in VMWare player doesn't seem to be any slower in practice thanks to VT, and it has greatly improved the ease of installing, upgrading and backing up my main Linux installation. I don't even bother to back up Windows - if it goes wrong I'll just blow it away and do a clean install.
When I'm on the go, I'm mostly working in vim, or browsing the web. Neither of these activities stress my resolution (especially as an XMonad user). When I'm at work or home I have an external monitor that provides me with all the resolution I could ever want.
Also, We had a Tandy Coco when I was a kid, I've had enough of chiclet keyboards. I'll be happy when Apple moves away from that.
I love my X201. It's very light but has a full size keyboard. I tend to have problems with RSS so this was a major consideration.
I went for the SSD option which I think was completely worth it. Boot of a standard Linux distribution is extremely quick (around 10s).
If you can afford it, it's worth seriously considering buying a laptop with a minimum of 1 docking station (depends on your work situation - if you have an office and work at home, I'd suggest buying 2). They just save so much headaches and fumbling around with cords. Of the brands I've tried with docking stations (Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo) - I have found that I've had the best experience with Toshiba, and the worst with Dell.
I've come to accept the fact that every couple years I do some serious damage to my laptop, so it's a huge plus if 1) I can replace parts myself and 2) I can cheaply and easily buy a replacement laptop if the thing is totalled. Both are the case with Thinkpads. The aftermarket is still healthy, I have no problem finding T40-T42s here for about $200.
Between repairs, battery upgrades every few years, and the few times I've had to replace a laptop wholesale, my cost of ownership is probably about $200 / year.
YMMV, but I've found this setup more than adequate for coding & browsing, and have no reason to upgrade to a newer model.
They're not the most good looking, but they're rugged and functional as hell. A Thinkpad looks the same after 5 years, most others peel and scratch. When I was backpacking, my road-mate had his macbook come apart .. literally, the case feel out of the bottom and the top came apart. Mine? I threw it into truck beds, buses, ferries, sat on it, slept on it, and it endured everything including the humidity in the Mekong and freezing weather in north-east China, not to mention power surges.
And it has channels in it that will drain liquids spilled on it away from components and through little holes in the body! I have not, and do not intend to test this.
I enjoyed my last Thinkpad (t40) a lot. Still have and use it after 6 years. But especially with linux, battery life wasn't very good (now the battery is completely dead of course). The fan never stopped.
To answer the question of the OP: yes, it is totally worth to learn Mac OS. First, the effort is small. Second, you will save a lot of admin time. Third, backup is easy, reliable and bootable. This alone recommends Macs as developer notebooks.
My girlfriend's HP gets at least half a day. I don't think she even bothers to charge it during the day.
But hers is a crap laptop with lousy, fragile keys; short screen (WTF IS THAT?) that's twice as wide than it's tall, and sucks for everything but listening to music.
One thing people say about Apple products is you pay a premium for the same hardware. I was talking to a friend and told him about a few unique bits of Apple Hardware.
1) The touchpad. There's a reason people now use the Apple Touchpad on desktops. It works really well. 2) Battery Life. I frequently sit through 5-6 hours of class on a single battery charge. My MBP is a mid-2009. I've heard the newer MBPs last even longer. 3) The unibody. I think a few other companies do this now, but the MBP is very low profile, and is built solidly. 4) Backlit keyboard. I remember my old days of groping in the dark for various symbols and things. The backlight makes a difference.
OS aside, if I were looking for a new laptop, these are the things I would look at. CPU speed doesn't effect me nearly as much as Battery life. 4GB RAM is pretty standard these days.
As far as OS X is concerned, I develop "in the cloud". I'm a heavy Vim/gdb user, so if I need a low level environment, I've got plenty of servers I can ssh into. If it's something like Rails or Python, it works perfectly in OS X.
Do you prefer glossy or matte laptop screens? Thinkpads are all matte, which makes the screen easier to read in various lighting conditions (no reflections), but makes the colours less vibrant.
The first week or so was painful. Mac OS wasn't as intuitive as I though it would be and it may be hard to find how to do things as a power Linux user. But after that initial learning curve, god it's good. Just the hardware itself is worth it, the feel, and of course the screen, which is one of the most important parts of a laptop I think. Finding and installing packages is OK with Homebrew (or MacPorts), not as intuitive as apt perhaps, though.
I have friends using a Thinkpad and if you ask me again today, I would definitely repeat my decision to go with the MBP. Maybe you're giving away a wee bit of Ubuntu goodness but you gain tremendously from hardware and being able to use other Mac software, which is very very good.
You might also consider system76, but I don't have experience with those.
EDIT: I'm currently running Linux on my T410. Suspend was broken with Ubuntu 10.4, but everything works perfectly now with 10.10.
I spent a while looking into MBPs and it seems the Linux support is still fairly laughable - the latest models won't even boot it, and even the older ones require a kernel recompile to get sound working. I'd buy an MBP without hesitation if I wanted to run OS X, but not as a Linux machine with a nicer case.
Also a thing to consider is that with the MBP if you decide that OSX is not for you, you can always install Linux or do Bootcamp and dual boot, or run Virtual Box and have a Linux VM. I do the latter for any odds and ends Windows only software that I need to run, but those are getting fewer and fewer these days.
If you decide to stay in the PC world I recommend Sager laptops. They are probably close to or superior to the MBP in terms of quality.
I've had repeated issues compiling different "cross platform" applications on MacOS that compile painlessly under various Linux distributions and even Windows! So you end up being heavily reliant on "port" to install software instead of "./configure / make / make install". The last thing that drove me up the wall was a bizarre failure in statically-linking SQLite into a QT application. Every other platform worked. MacOS failed spectacularly.
If you want a Linux laptop, get a Linux laptop. I'm only on a Macbook for video editing and iPhone/iPad development. It is excellent for that and it is a beautiful machine in many ways (love the chassis), but it is not nearly as good a platform for developers as Ubuntu by any means.
I don't recall saying that it is or is not in my post above. Please don't put words in my mouth.
but it is not nearly as good a platform for developers as Ubuntu by any means
you are painting a pretty broad stroke there.
I do web and mobile development, both require application like Photoshop, professional video editing tools while web specifically Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and IE, Flash and a few others. For me Linux is not a superior development platform because getting some of these running is just as hacky as getting libs to work correctly on OSX. I use Netbeans as my development IDE which is available on OSX and I have to run a virtual for IE so for me OSX offers a happy middle-ground because I get iOS development while only having to trade running IE in a virtual. So while Ubuntu may be a superior development platform for what you do, it may not be for other developers. The original poster specifically highlighted web development tools. And for web development OSX offers a good value proposition. It has its frustrations just as other OS's do.
One, Terminal on Mac is extremely useful, even if the Page Up/Down keys don't work.
Second, those keys do what I expect in Terminal right now on my Mac, and I've done nothing special to get them working.
Third, Mac does come with curl preinstalled, which fits a very similar tool niche to wget.
In general, it is true that there are some Linux-centric tools and packages that currently don't build easily or have preexisting binary ports for Mac, however, that's true in reverse as well. And I can assure you that Mac provides a much more Linux-like experience in a terminal than MS Windows. Also, keep in mind, that with many of the software packages in the Open Source world, it's up to individual people to do the work to get a particular package working perfectly on a particular platform permutation. Nobody "owes" you anything, or guarantees any particular permutation will be perfect. Therefore, while there might be 1000's of libraries and applications that do work perfectly and have equal availability on Linux and Mac, it may not be wise to assume that everything will be, and then cite any specific imperfection as "bizarre" or spectacular failure. It's just software, it's very complex, and if nobody has come before you to smooth that particular cow path then it won't be smooth unless you yourself do the smoothing. :)
This was the case with my Lenovo as well until I found powertop and followed its suggestions.
Mouse-Rig-Test:~ jon$ locate usage: locate [-0Scims] [-l limit] [-d database] pattern ...
default database: `/var/db/locate.database' or $LOCATE_PATH
Mouse-Rig-Test:~ jon$ which locate
/usr/bin/locate
I've had a few Thinkpads running Ubuntu and now a MBP running Ubuntu.. and I prefer the MBP.
I assume you mean 68000 series to PowerPC transition? I lived through that and thought it was handled even better than the recent PPC -> Intel transition. Programs were compiled as FAT binaries for years and years because of the huge installed base of 68k machines. I don't see how you could have had a "brick" after just 6 months.
The machine runs Linux well enough; suspend works, all the hardware works except for the fingerprint reader and the built-in camera. The video is a hybrid graphics with nVidia and Intel; IME nVidia sucks under linux, so I've just had it disabled and use only the GM45 card. I've heard that the latest Z series users are sometimes having trouble with their video, but I think the latest rc kernel has the support required (always the case with linux and latest hardware...).
As far as using Linux on a Macbook, how do you get around the lack of a middle and right click? Is the multi-touch/gesture stuff actually in the touchpad hardware so Linux sees a proper three button scroll mouse, or what? I think I'd go mad trying to use Linux on a single-button touchpad.
To tell a bit about the software side on a Mac: As long as you don't mess with the system, it runs nicely. Recently I wanted to have a look at clutter ("software library for creating (...) graphical user interfaces") which depends on newer versions of the libraries that ship with OS X. After fiddling around with building it myself (or building Formulae for Homebrew which is a simple and nice package manager for OS X) I decided to go with Ubuntu and Awesome as my window manager. There was just too many barriers in the way. For web development, OS X was nice. Unfortunately I'm also toying around with a lot of music software which rarely has an OSS equivalent.
Some points on Apple hardware: The build quality is very nice. It might not have the latest stuff, but all components they ship are well integrated and usually don't get you into hassle (as long as you stick with OS X). I honestly don't want to miss the multitouch trackpad.
Conclusion: If you can live with the system that OS X is, go for it. Perhaps you'll get pissed some day about the missing freedom some day. Don't expect that the hardware in a MacBook will fully supported in a Linux distro
I honestly don't want to miss the multitouch trackpad
These are the key take aways, OSX is good for web / mobile development and the track pad is one hell of a plus for going with a MBP. I would not use OSX for C or C++ development or any system development for that matter, but for web and mobile it is a great system.
Other than that boot-up time is pretty fast, and I don't spend hours trying to find drivers for hardware. And it cost me half of what a Macbook Pro would.
http://www.system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=28&produc...
Sound, wifi and the camera work fine and it's been through a couple of Ubuntu upgrades with no issues. I was specifically looking for something that would be zero maintenance and have been very happy.
I run Emacs a lot, develop for Django, run Eclipse very rarely and I am quite happy with a very modest Acer netbook. Most of the time, it sits on my desk connected to a big monitor, keyboard and mouse. Web browsing and Flash-heavy sites are a problem, as is the Intel GMA due to the 2048x2048 screen size limitation for hardware acceleration.
I can't overestimate how welcome is the portability it affords carrying my whole "desktop" environment in a small bag. If I drop it, everything important is backed up thanks to the twin miracles of rsync and version control.
I have long given up on high-end notebooks. They are typically big and heavy and faster than I usually need. Also, losing one is a bit more painful than just having to pay US$400 for a faster equivalent and doing an environment restore.
If you're just doing basic run-of-the-mill web development, and it looks like you are, then a MBP will work just fine. If you're in Vim and Bash all day long, there isn't really much for you to learn. Some things are a little quirky, off the top of my head I think Apache2 is installed in a weird location, and command line app X may not be installed by default, but it's probably no more obscure than switching to a BSD or Solaris.
Its a good laptop with Ubuntu 10.10, only thing not working is suspend automatically when the lid is closed.
Money no object and you need Linux than a ThinkPad would be your best bet. Expensive, but awesome keyboards and pretty durable & reliable.
You can install Linux on a MBP as a commenter has already mentioned, but you have to install a weird open source EFI thing for boot, and it'd be tricky to get support for the newest hardware.
Another option is to use Ubuntu in VirtualBox on OS X. You can install all of your favorite Linux packages in OS X, but they're patched and you can't always get the latest release without some work. AFAIK all of the open-source package management systems for OS X are source based so you get to watch things compile. I used to have a MBP and compiling new software was always annoying to me.
(X200 feels cheap, plastic breaks, lcd dies, battery replaced twice, hibernation does not work all the time, sound problems, logos flew off, ....)
I was using a small Dell laptop at my last job and the quality was much much better than the X200.
Essentially after IBM sold them the quality tanked.
2. "don't support their products in the slightest" <-- this is hyperbole because it's easily shown to be false by hundreds of stories on the web from people who have had good support experiences with Apple.
Ups: 1) Really nice construction 2) Really well put together GUI 3) In general it's a nicer experience than a non-mac with similar tech-specs.
Downs: 1) No standard central packaging system; All the software you mention is available on the mac but you have to either: a) Build it yourself b) Use macports or fink, etc. Furthermore, some of the more gui focused things have very nice mac-native ports (e.g. MacVim) but you'll have to track those down yourself. 2) Price. You can get a very nice non-mac laptop every year for the same price as getting the 17" Macbook Pro every 2 years. I compare to the 17" since I won't code on anything with less that 1200 vertical lines. If you plan on only coding with an external monitor, this may not apply. 3) Not super configurable. You get something very well put together and designed, but that also means there aren't a lot of options.
I had the option of getting a macbook pro at work but went with a Dell instead.
The only upgrade I made was an Intel X25-M 80GB SSD. It screams. Get one, or whatever SSD in that bracket or above that suits your pocketbook.
Last thing: I'm working on a brand new iMac at my current gig and I don't like it. I'm not a fan of OSX. I've tried several times but I just prefer Linux. Debian based systems with apt are so easy. Ports & Fink for OSX suck, so if you do go with a MBP, look into http://j.mp/mxcl-homebrew.
The key thing is to make sure that all of the hardware in whatever laptop you buy has proper drivers. This can either be accomplished by buying a cheaper laptop with slightly less top of the line hardware (hardware that is slightly aged is more likely to have had someone debugging driver issues on it), or by checking that all of the hardware has appropriate drivers.
http://www.linux-drivers.org/ might be a good starting place.
I spend all my time in an Ubuntu VM running XMonad, mainly so that I can use nice os x apps (mac end-user apps are just freakin' awesome, especially 3rd party apps) and so that I don't spend 2 days fixing my sound or my wireless card after an overzealous apt-get upgrade screws it up.
Ten years ago I considered it fun endlessly tweaking my OS to play nicely with my hardware, but these days, I just want to get stuff done. So, the Mac pretty much guarantees the host machine is running harmoniously since the OS and hardware were purpose-built for each other.
I've gotten good mileage out of a Dell XPS Studio 16 w/ubuntu but can't recommend it due to driver issues with wireless (avoid intel5100) and graphics (radeon hd3760).
If I was buying a new laptop I would search the hackintosh and iATKOS forums to find models that can install OSX out of the box and triple boot it.
After that, figure out exactly what resolution\size pixels per inch you want the display. I like 1600x900 for laptops myself. That should narrow it down to only a couple models.
I have the x61, which is great. If I were buying one today, I'd probably get one of the x300 series; they seem to have a slower CPU than the x61 (and x200), but faster graphics, and better screen resolution. CPUs are fast enough that it almost doesn't matter these days (for web dev anyway), but faster graphics are always good -- I really feel the screen redraw when switching desktops with it plugged into my 26 inch monitor (still, this machine is like, 2.5 years old).
For me, having a lightweight and portable machine is pretty key. I also have an MBP (15 inch), but it's so much more work to throw into my backpack and lug around. I always have my Thinkpad with me, which is a huge part of what makes it valuable.
... Man, I am such a fanboy! :)
Way better than my original first-run 13" white macbook. That being said, I started a new job and I'm getting a maxed out 15" macbook pro. I miss Mac OS, and I'll be living in an IDE, so that's why I chose the macbook. Otherwise it'd be a hard choice between a macbook and a T400S.
The x3* series is now discontinued.
Shortly, yes. Mac as a platform (hw & sw) is really solid and beautiful, letting you to focus on your work, instead of configuring your machine. I used various Linux distros (Redhat, Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu) as my primaly OS from 1998 to 2006, until switched to Mac with no previous experience. It took few months before it felt like home, but after that I have never considered to swithing back.
Your Linux skills will be in great use on server side.
> Do I easily get all the software I'll need (svn, git, django, python, vim)?
No problem. You can have even apt-get. Check out these:
http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/ & http://www.macports.org/
PS. As a FOSS advocate, in my wildest dream the FOSS community will some day come up with something as elegant as OS X, but unfortunately it's hard to see that happening.
I currently run VMWare Fusion on 4gigs of ram. The decision points, for me, revolve around:
* battery life - quad cores are 48nm, which is why MBP stuck with i7 32nm presumably. * price/performance - for $800 I have a 6 core desktop with 8 gigs of ram. For a $2000 budget I can get a desktop and a laptop, and have the VM on an external drive, swap the drive between machines out depending on where I'm working from. * durability, convenience and stability - can you do what you need to do without things breaking? DRM? Package management. There are a lot of trade-offs in either direction * job requirements - still need to debug in browsers on mac and windows. running osx in a virtual machine isn't super easy/legal.
Since I've come to terms with most of the issues above, I've been wanting to not get a MBP. I can always keep my old mac, too. I'm not developing ipad/iphone apps...
Its nice to have a laptop that just works, suspend resume is really awesome. The polish on the whole thing is pretty nice too.
It still isnt a flexible as ubuntu and I dont feel quite as productive in it yet, lots of little nagging issues with installing stuff and hardware support which I havent had with ubuntu for a long time.
My T30 recently died after six years of excellent service and I switched to an Asus to save $200. I have regretted that decision more than I can tell you. Ubuntu has taken endless tweaking to get working, keyboard buttons started falling off after only a year, plastic moldings are pealing off, touchpad is of poor quality, and I could go on. Do yourself a favor and buy a Lenovo, the quality is outstanding.
If you choose to go the MBP route, it does come with its own problems. Take a hard drive failure, for example. 20+ screws to remove the thing and replace it. You basically have to take the entire bottom apart. On a lenovo, unscrew a single screw, run whatever processes you can on it to save your data, and pop a new one in.
It's not exactly a high-end machine, but my logic went like this:
1) 15" is too big, 13.3" is too small. This is a 14.3" widescreen, which seems perfect.
2) Decent, if not outstanding specs. i5 430M processor, 4G RAM, 500GB HD. (Most Google results are for an i3 version, but it seems the newer ones are i5)
3) Cheap enough (< $800) that spending extra to get a SSD to use as my boot drive makes sense (arriving today).
4) Has an internal DVD drive, which I'm going to replace with a drive caddy and the original 500GB HD.
5) It even has a dedicated (NVidia 310M) video card. I'm not a gamer, but CUDA support might be fun to play with.
I haven't installed Ubuntu yet, but I did boot it off a USB and all the hardware seems ok.
The disadvantages:
1) Low battery life. It's only a small, 6 cell battery and lasts 3-4 hours. This isn't a huge issue for me ATM.
2) Screen resolution is 1366x768. This looks fine on a 13.3", but on the 14" a little higher might be nice.
3) Not as nice looking as a MacBook Pro
But I will certainly recommend the Dell Studio 15 + Ubuntu.
Drivers work without problems (just a small step to take with the wifi) and is quite stable. My partners that own MPB had problems with theirs during this time, plus if the need to have a presentation they need to carry additional HW.
When the laptop was brand new, I had some problems with the sound drivers, but contacted someone working on a patch for ALSA and was able to test it out before it was merged. Broadcom wireless is easy on openSUSE as a script is provided, but that should be a solved problem for Ubuntu as well; NVIDIA caused some problems which were easily resolved by installing the proprietary drivers. Today it seems that Nouveau is far enough along to function as a replacement for the proprietary drivers.
That said, the laptop was a gift and were the choice mine, I would probably go with a Thinkpad.
Asus UL80vt; Extremely good battery life, quite good performance, initially had a problem with the hybrid graphics setup between the integrated intel and discrete nvidia but stock 10.04 worked fine on this, the only catch was the ath9k chipset for wifi, which although it did work would randomly drop out and require a reboot for reconnection, switching to the preempt kernel line fixes this issue.
Asus N71JQ; Good middle of the road system bang for buck wise, ATI drivers were significantly shakier than Nvidia, but not enough to dissuade me from ATI entirely in future purchases, exact same problem with the ath9k chipset as with the ul80vt.
Asus G73Jh; Ridiculously awesome performance and the hybrid drives on the system make this perform significantly better than even desktop 7200rpm drives (at least for read), the cost is significantly lower than even a mid range MBP and you simply cannot get these specs on an MBP at any price. The drawback is that the video card is past the bleeding edge that is gracefully handled by the stock fglrx drivers from ATI.
I spent days first fixing this in ubuntu 10.04 by manually patching kernel driver files and rebuilding the fglrx modules myself, followed by this being broken a month later when upstream went ahead and fixed the same problem in a different way, resulting in extensive maintenance to push out the conflicting fglrx mods. That said, this issue should actually be fixed as of the present 10.04 release and the double dose of pain I got may have been an artefact of my specific case. If this is really the case this is an awesome development rig. The only other drawback is that old ath9k chestnut, same fix as required for the other two mentioned model, the preempt line of kernels fixes this.
The only other issue affecting all three systems is that the touchpad freeze function does not work without extensive kernel level messing around and I couldn't be bothered to go that far to fix what I felt to be a minor issue (it was most pronounced on the ul80vt due to the size relative to my enormous hands and least on the G73jh for the same reason).
This laptop didn't cost that much -- around $1000 but the build quality isn't that good -- though the keyboard is excellent (with a numpad).
As a side note -- the best solution seems to be getting a MBP and then running Ubuntu virtually for development and OSX stuff for everything else.
Was only $650 and runs Mint (Ubuntu derivative) just fine. Only problem with it is that the trackpad sucks, but why would you be using the trackpad when you spend all your time in vim? In short, it's plenty fast and since it's a third the price of an MBP there's no guilt in buying a new laptop every year.
$780 at Best Buy for 3.0lbs, 2.4GHz Core i3, 4GB, 500GB 5400RPM drive, dual-layer DVD writer, SD slot, HDMI and VGA out, eSATA port, built-in 4G (Linux-compatible with mainline kernel drivers), chiclet keyboard similar to Macbooks, 13" 1366x768 display (glossy but less glossy than a Macbook).
Get a ThinkPad if you want to spend more.
T410s:
* sound doesn't work in latest Ubuntu, need a kernel update for a new PCI ID.
* battery charge percentage goes from 0-10%, where 10% is "full". Apparently the embedded controller decided to change which units it reports current in.
T510:
* black screen when booting Fedora or Ubuntu installers. Caused by lack of drivers for the embedded DisplayPort connection to the LCD panel.
* display backlight brightness controls don't work
* suspend doesn't work, because it has a USB3 controller which fails to suspend, because the upstream kernel doesn't have any suspend/resume support for USB3 controllers yet.
Sigh.
When I got my T61, the current Ubuntu (breezy, IIRC) didn't run on it. I installed the alpha of the upcoming version (gutsy) and it kind of limped along; all the newer versions worked just fine out of the box.
If you expect to get anything done without using the mouse, knowing all the "special key combinations" is a pre-requisite for any OS. I hate to be the kool-aid drinker that jumps to Apple's defense, but I hear a lot of complaints about OS X keyboard accessibility that simply aren't true. A single checkbox enables access to "all controls" through your keyboard. It's turned of by default because, frankly, most people don't use the keyboard. I do, but my computer is my instrument.
Not being able to dismiss a dialog box with the keyboard was driving me mad.
System Prefs>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts>"All Controls"
I'm still getting a ThinkPad for personal development projects, but my work laptop just became much more usable.
All the stuff I've tried worked out of the box (built-in wireless, webcam, sound, graphics card w/ NVidia driver, etc).
It's a great laptop and the SSD and 4 Ggis of RAM make coding much more enjoyable.
As a side note, it takes 5-10 seconds to boot into Kubuntu from a complete shutdown (i.e. not suspend-to-disk), whereas it takes over 45 seconds to get into Vista (on the same laptop)... And Windows isn't starting up database and web servers.
So if you want to get a PC, definitely look into the XPS 1530.
Their machines work great with Ubuntu - unlike many laptops from other vendors.
And yes, you get all the software you'll need - it's Debian at least.
Just upgraded to 10.10 and everything works just as expected (provided you've installed the System76 drivers), including wifi and the webcam. It really is a beast too, performance-wise, with 8 cores and 4 gigs of ram.
Since getting a MBP I can say that I do prefer OSX to Ubuntu, but I'm a Ruby/Rails dev surrounded by other Apple guys using Textmate so it's the path of least resistance for me for sure.
Thankfully I have a Thinkpad 410s replacing it tomorrow.
I love the keyboard, battery life, and how light it is. It performs more than well enough for web development, web browsing, video watching.
IMHO, it's worse. My biggest gripes: (1) built-in terminal doesn't do fullscreen, (2) built-in terminal doesn't have easy way to emulate different keyboards (tmux requires function keys behave like xterm).
BUT the iApps are SWEET. iPhoto/iMovie are rocking my world.
I say this as a recent dabbler in Mac.
Installed Ubuntu 10.10 yesterday. Everything worked, all hardware works correctly. Couldn't be happier. :)
* Sleep; unlike some previous experiences the laptop does pretty reliably come back after sleep, but it's slow to wake up and the experience feels crude. The locked screen login screen for instance requires a keypress, and then another second before you can actually enter the password making it easy to leave out the first character of your password. I'd remove it entirely but I can't find a preference for that.
* Automatic sleep via closing the screen is a pain, primarily because of the slowness. If you regret having closed the laptop (i.e., you forgot just one thing) then you open it up only to see it pokily trying to sleep, waiting, and trying to wake it up. I've resorted to turning off all automatic sleeping, which also causes lots of problems but at least is predictable.
* External monitors work great now, they've finally figured that out (at least with the video hardware in a Thinkpad; though it seems generally good these days). Still it's tweaky and annoying. I run a lot with two monitors, and everytime I reconnect I have to tweak the settings and go through a little dance to avoid bugs in screen layout (connect monitor, orientation is wrong, mirror screens, apply, unmirror, rearrange, fix resolutions, apply). With my previous Dell laptop I had to logout to connect a screen, so at least it's better.
* Sometimes when I go into suspend it fails. So I'll tuck my laptop away, not wanting to wait 20 seconds to see if it successfully slept, and then later realize my backpack is hot because it's running full speed in there.
* Battery life is poor. One cool feature of Thinkpads is you can remove the DVD drive and replace it with a battery. This takes a long time to charge, but it's cool (and hotswapping works great, in case I want the DVD drive). Still I only get a couple hours of battery life. When I've tried to apply tweaks to improve battery life I've broken things or disabled hardware.
* Wireless is not reliable in more complex setups, e.g., sometimes WPA doesn't work.
* Sometimes wireless doesn't come back after going into airplane mode.
* The hardware has good and bad parts. The physical build quality is unimpressive. The dock is nice, and only available with a couple kinds of laptops (Thinkpad, Dell... not sure what else?) The speakers are passable, about the same as a Macbook. You don't need a dongle for a VGA monitor, but you need a dock to do DVI. It's not terribly hot. The Mac screens are definitely better. I like the mouse nipple, but the touchpad on a Mac is way better than the Thinkpad's touchpad. Three mouse buttons, very nice for Linux. The camera works, video chat works, bluetooth works, and probably a bunch of other things that wouldn't be givens a few years ago on Linux.
I would seriously consider a laptop specifically designed for Linux (like System76; someone tweeted me another one a while ago but stupid Twitter doesn't let me look back to old replies). But it feels weird because I've never known someone who personally has such a laptop. And it's very hard to trust someone who says "Linux works great on X" because there are a lot of people who have a very low standard of what "great" means.
But, to each their own...
I will die out of joy the day Photoshop comes to Ubuntu. That is the ONLY reason I have Windows installed.
I've never used System76 but saw them at a recent Linux fest. Seemed like very quality machines: actually have their logo as part of the case and windows key replaced with an Ubuntu key (neither are stickers).
You can get almost all the softwares on Ubuntu which you get on Mac OSx.
I've seen a team of Python web developers with MacBook Pros. They all used Ubuntu virtual machines for the actual development.
My HP 6510b has run every version of Ubuntu since 8.04. I put a 12 cell travel battery on it when I travel so it is a bit heavy. 4GB RAM. Usually run xfce. I am a sysadmin so often have a handful of xterms open and VirtualBox running XP for vSphere, etc. chrome open with HN in the background. Jabber session or two.
I really cannot say enough about this laptop. Not pretty at all but durable.
Everything works - except the fingerprint reader which I have never cared about to get to work.
It has been great. Currently am on Ubuntu 10.10/ xfce. Have used this laptop since 2007 - initially had Win2k on it.
the current incarnation is the 6550b: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13616_ca/13616...
My lspci00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b6)
02:04.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 02)
10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
18:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
- Windows: snappy until it fucks up, best fonts, Flash runs perfectly, you feel mainstream, pragmatic - Linux: great support for developing, ugly fonts and lousy hardware support, you feel a hacker - MacOS: Youtube makes the MBP hot, never need to boot again, just close/open the lid, good looking apps, you feel modern and cool
No noise sad.
Truly portable.
5h plus battery
Do not heat your lap.
Got last year for 300. Amazon has now for 700 :(
And most important. It does not have CPU to run things like silly flash games :)
it's ok for running vim. :)
The end.
Personally I've been developing on a modest 10' ASUS eee PC for years. Ubuntu loaded with all of the above and much more have been no problem at all. Lately I've been considering replacing it for the new 12' model though, since both the keyboard and the mousepad buttons are beginning to show wear from using it so much.
Macbook Pros are premium notebooks in the exact same way high end Thinkpads are. The price between a Macbook Pro and any other high end notebook is competitive.
With an inexpensive brand, you're getting inferior screens and flimsy plastic bodies. The specs might line up on paper, but that's as naive an approach to comparing hardware as you can get. Buying based on a flimsy spec checklist versus matching up the device to your real-world requirements is going to result in a great deal of buyer remorse.
If you're a road warrior, the last thing you want is a laptop with a flimsy body and weak solder points on the ports. If you are using your laptop as your only screen, you don't want to be spending >= 8h a day looking at a cheapass LCD.
Just like you don't see professional carpenters using dollar store tools, as a professional developer, you need to invest in quality hardware - regardless of the brand.
MacBook Pros are premium indeed. But unless you're looking specifically for the "premium" look, then there's no reason to default to Macs.
Please bear in mind that I base all my comments on first hand, personal experience. As stated I've been running on a tiny, flimsy, plastic thing for years. My trusty machine have been thrown around and even landed on a stone floor from ~2m, with me onto. I have the marks to show for it, but the machine merely chipped at the edge.
Your argument about the LCDs being inferior I simply don't follow. What makes you think you're getting a different LCD in your MBP than everybody else does? It's the same technology as in all other machines out there.
I know specs are easy to dismiss, but honestly, it's not the extra shine that makes your computer run faster.
You hit the nail on the head (pun intended) with your analogy - why should the carpenter choose a specific brand or hammer just for the aluminum handle? Inexpensive is not the same as "cheapass". You get plenty of quality machines at half the prices of a MBP.