Ask HN: Bad software or bad hardware, the choice is yours
I never owned a MacBook and never used OS X, I have a 2011 Dell Latitude running Linux. I thought "3 years have passed since my laptop purchase, MacBooks are great but OS X not so much lately. I am happy with my experience with Linux, maybe I can get a new machine which is better than my current one instead of going for a MacBook".
What's historically the best type of laptop running Linux? It's a ThinkPad. But in 2015 they ship with 4GB RAM soldiered to the motherboard and running in single channel (T450s, X250). Bear in mind these are the newest ThinkPads that were announced today. The memory is upgradable to 8GB. Thanks, we already had this in 2011.
What's the point of the whole industry push for longer battery, powerful integrated graphics and creating the ultrabook specification only to ruin it in a small but important way.
Long story short - the PC vendors are trying really hard to make the worst machines they can think of and break things.
And then there's Apple making great hardware but failing on the software front (that's my impression reading about other people's experience). So... regardless of the hardware improvements the last few years, I think there's a "people" problem, teams failing to produce a coherent software and hardware package.
I think I will stick with my 3-year old laptop until it breaks (most likely the hinges). Then get a MacBook running OS X because it is still better than the alternatives.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 22.5 ms ] threadYou're also getting a slightly biased view of the PC market at CES. Intel announced low-end dual-core processors, so all the PC vendors announced low-end laptops. When Intel has a new quad-core processor available, expect to see some new high-end laptops.
I really enjoy my current set up, even though it took a while to get here!
It has 8 GB of memory. I don't know whether it can be upgraded but I don't see a panel for installing extra memory.
IMHO 8 GB is plenty for anything I'd ever want to do with a laptop. My Xeon workstation has 16 GB; it never ever experiences page faults. But if it did, it's socketed for 64 GB of FB-DIMM.
Apple hardware, for the most part, holds its value better than your typical boxen that is used for Windows. If you got the same configuration I had, you could purchase it used for less than a grand, install Linux on it, then be very happy.
I really like my Retina display, so much so that I actively dislike regular screens. My understanding is that Linux supports the Retina - it's called something else under Linux - and that this support can be enabled by Mint, but I haven't actually checked.
VirtualBox doesn't support the Retina, I think I'd have to boot natively to use it.
I was OK with Snow Leopard, but IMHO, OS X as well as iOS have been going downhill since. I may not even submit my App to the App Store. I might well just provide a source tarball on my website, then say goodbye to the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field for good.
This has been a tough decision, as I was once a White Badge Apple Employee, and on another occasion did QA tools there as a contract programmer.
Apple is a great place to work, but it has always sucked to be an Apple developer.
From what I read, Linux's DEs (Unity, Gnome 3 and Cinnamon) don't work well with HiDPI screens (i.e. Retina or any other 1080p+ screen) even though they are supported in theory. I hope you have a positive experience running Mint on the MacBook.
I'd like to contribute something of substance to the Linux codebase. If the screen indeed does not work well, maybe I can fix it.
I've been an Apple developer since 1986.
Hardware if it is really bad may may not be overcome.
I run an N76 with no driver issues, and 16GB RAM. I believe there are other models that work well too.