hunterloftis

Here's a sentence I never expected to write: For the past few months I've used Bing as my default search engine.

While Bing's standard search results are slightly worse than Google's, both sets of traditional searches have been in a steady decline for years. It's not news on HN that both technical results and product recommendations have become especially awful outside of forums like Reddit.

However, Bing's "chat" feature with ChatGPT 4 was brilliant. I'd developed a habit of "chatting" instead of searching, especially for technical queries. Bing became my go-to instead of Google. They converted me! I thought it was a brilliant move by Microsoft.

Being a Linux + un-googled Chromium user, this was largely thanks to the "Bing Chat for All Browsers" extension. Even if I wanted to use Edge as my daily driver, I couldn't on my Fedora workstation. But Microsoft sent a legal takedown to the developer, leading to this: https://github.com/anaclumos/bing-chat-for-all-browsers/issues/119

So I just switched back to Google today. They have Bard now, with no browser restrictions - I'll try it out instead.

Was I really so far out of Microsoft's target demographic that it's part of their product strategy to lose me? They're clearly aiming at Windows + Edge users. Maybe they're getting so many conversions in that segment that actively churning Linux-centric developers like me isn't a big deal?

If you would like to develop outside of the Apple ecosystem, find Windows clunky, and dislike fiddling with Linux to get it to work on arbitrary hardware, consider the X1 with Fedora. I bought one at the recent Black Friday sale: $1,700 for a 12 Gen i7-1280P, 32GB, 512GB SSD. I love this machine.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/thinkpad-x1-carbon-gen-10-(14-inch-intel)/21cbcto1wwus2

Physically, it's fantastic. Hats off to the engineers and designers for investing in the tactile experience. They made it lightweight but simultaneously substantial-feeling via rigidity and weight distribution. I now understand why Thinkpad keyboards are so well-regarded. Its trackpad matches Apple's, which is the highest praise I can give. The brilliant screen has an aspect ratio that's as good for building things as for consuming content. And battery life supports hours of binging netflix after compiling a bunch of code.

I've been even more pleasantly surprised by the software experience. This is a Linux workstation that "just works." Close the lid, it goes on standby - open, and it resumes instantly. Plug it into a 100Mhz ultrawide monitor via a lightning cable, and not only does it seamlessly extend the desktop at native refresh rates, but it also mounts all the devices that are connected via the monitor's integrated USB hub. I'm able to log in via my bluetooth kinesis keyboard consistently, without hassle. Updates are fast, easy, and tested on the exact hardware I'm using. I've been using it as my daily driver for a week and I've yet to dive down a rabbit-hole of outdated forum advice to get something basic to work.

Finally, and more subjectively, Fedora's out-of-the-box experience handily outshines both OSX and Windows. Window-snapping, global search, software installation via a package manager, resource efficiency, containerization support, configuration, etc.

I wanted to share here for any others who have tried, and failed, to find a legitimately better-than-Macbook development machine for the past few years.