56 ms·

Here is an easy alternative to a MacBook Pro (easy for a professional anyway): Buy a standard Laptop with matte display. Install Arch Linux (learn one thing or

by kluck 10y ago

Here is an easy alternative to a MacBook Pro (easy for a professional anyway): Buy a standard Laptop with matte display. Install Arch Linux (learn one thing or another on the way). Use Gnome 3 (maybe install some software from Pantheon as well, like the file manager pantheon-files). Get work done.

mping 10y ago
Agreed. Everyone calls themselves pros, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty with Linux. Basically everyone's a pro-sumer. When I go to the mechanic he doesn't care if the tools get him dirty, he uses the best tools for the job, not for his clothes. I get that some people want to look at gorgeous UIs but nobody told me how that gets the work done. I want to use the best tool, and I try to define best as objectively as possible. Faster CPUs is better. Native support for docker is better. Walled garden is worse. macOs is better if you do ios apps. UI look&feel is debatable. Preference on terminal emulator is debatable. More memory is better. If you do devops and ssh onto linux boxes, linux is better. etc.
- matt4077 10y ago
  That's quite a romanticized stereotype of a mechanic. It's also the wrong analogy. The computer, in that analogy, is his tool. It may be the "best for the job", but the mechanic isn't usually mucking around in its internals. When the hydraulic ramp is broken, he calls someone. There is absolutely no need for someone writing software to ever open up his computer, or to compile the kernel they're running natively (if you're actually working at kernel-level, you'll do most of it in VMs). All that stuff can be fun, no doubt. But it's your hobby, and really no reason to feel like a superior "professional" vs. the lower classes of "prosumers".
  - mping 10y ago
    My point is that the fact that you need to recompile a kernel or do some pkg install to get (for example) a machine that supports 32gb is never an excuse NOT to get it. And people do open their laptops (ex: upgrade from HDD to SSD) or install new kernels (ex: docker support). Don't take my post as a superior class claim. If I say I am a pro, and I say I need 32 gb I go and get it. Don't care if I have to spend a day installing arch because 32gb are worth it. Ofc theres all shades of gray and I understand people like to look to antialiased fonts instead of green-on-black, or don't like to learn a new package manager syntax but please that is absolutely not directly related to the delivery. The time you spend configuring a system is completely amortised over time, if the system is better.
  - pavelludiq 10y ago
    True about the kernel, but I've recompiled many of my tools(for example linux repos sometimes provide outdated versions of packages and I need something newer). I often dig in source if I find bugs, or under-documented areas, sometimes I just want to know what is really happening. True, that doesn't make people who don't do that any less "pro", but it does make me sharper as a practitioner. I earn a deeper knowledge about my tools and my environment and occasionally pick up good ideas, or learn some horrible truth about a beloved tool. Programming is fairly unique in the sense that our tools and our products are made of essentially the same stuff. At the very least I consider this a form of exercise worth practicing on a regular basis. It's not strictly work, and not strictly a hobby.
- bosie 10y ago
  Can you list the software applications you are using? I tried to switch but there is basically no professional software on linux for non-server related tasks. Just replacing something like Fantastical (calendar) or OmniFocus (gtd) is hard/impossible. Other pain points are replacements for DevonThink (reference manager), Evernote (note taking), papers (bibliography/search), lightroom (photo management and editing), keyboard maestro (macros). list just goes on and on.
  - mping 10y ago
    If thats what you do professionaly then use it. I use mostly zsh, IntelliJ, Emacs and a browser. My work is 90% terminal/editor/browser. Used to do audio back in the day, linux was crap, even windows today is crap (I have to use crazy drivers to be able to play guitar without lag, using asio4all. if I were a pro I wouldnt compile the kernel on linux to support preemption or whatever alsa requires these days, would go to macs). Also know a few people who did a phd and do alot of research, they say papers is the best app ever. Wouldn't recommend anything other than a mac for them.
    - bosie 10y ago
      Well, i also use vim/zsh/intellij as well as all the apps i listed above. Intellij on its own isn't good enough if i can't manage my tasks/calendar/research/notes... Hence I am curious how you do that?
      - mping 10y ago
        Personally, I stopped trying to find an app to do all of that. I put my notes in gmail drafts and try to keep them at a minimum, put my appoints in google calendar, and use short-lived bookmarks. For projects, I put tasks in the README so I'm always updating it. I painfully found out some time ago that I don't need much more than that - I try not to have lots of reminders/todos/etc. I don't do research or photo editing, or much more than coding anyway.
        bosie 10y ago
- inimino 10y ago
  It's all debatable. Your OS choice is subjective, but if you like Linux and have fun with it that's as good a reason as any.
- inimino 10y ago
  It's all debatable. Your OS choice is subjective, but if you like Linux and have fun with it that's as good a reason as any.
beojan 10y ago
I would agree, except substitute Plasma for Gnome 3.
- kluck 10y ago
  Sure, that is just a matter of taste. But no matter which window manager you choose, running Linux, you are actually released from the Apple prison (technical and mental prison). (Speaking as a current user of an old MacBook Pro which is my first and last Apple product. Also I had an iPad but sold it long ago.)
  - moftz 10y ago
    I smashed my Nexus 6P's screen and have been using a friend's old iPhone 4s in the meantime as my old Androids were either damaged or totally dead beyond recharging. Disregarding the sluggishness of the phone (it is 5 years old...), there are so many things that even a stock android rom will allow me to customize that iOS doesn't even think about. I just cracked open my old Droid Razr to jumpstart the battery so I could get back to android until my replacement 6P comes.
moftz 10y ago
As much as I love running Arch on my school laptop, I'd never run it on a laptop I would use for making money. I'd probably be using something like Fedora, a stable distro that doesn't break whenever I update en masse. I usually don't have too many huge bombs go off in my face but the most recent round of updates I applied totally killed my sound and some NetworkManager features. Annoying, not totally disasterous, but I've had some killer bugs in the past that have made me waste time on fixing issues when I should have been studying. If I'm getting paid, I'm not spending the time on fixing all the small issues that pop up with Arch. I love it otherwise. Sometimes it's fun to blow a few hours on a weekend fixing some random bug that has only ever happened to you. Sometime's its not fun and just really inconvenient. I always keep a backup Windows partition just in case something bad happens and I really need to use a computer for a bit or if I just need to run some random Window's only app.
- Accacin 10y ago
  Running Arch for years, and an update has never broken my system. It requires more maintenance, sure, but Arch is incredibly stable generally.
- kluck 10y ago
  If updates in Arch frequently "destroy" some features, you could do this: have two partitions, each with Arch on it and bootable from the boot manager. The first is minimal (rescue system) and the second is the one you use. Then before you make an update, boot into the rescue Arch, backup the second Arch partition's data, try the update and see how it goes ;)
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Yeah... Or use basically any other OS and get shit done without every update degenerating into a day's worth fiddling.
inimino 10y ago
I think it's unfortunate you're being downvoted, but here's the thing: you go to the Apple store, buy a laptop, bring it home and plug it in and it works beautifully from day one. That's Apple's value proposition. (Subtract "beautifully" for Microsoft's.) Your plan means I'm signing up for a period of pain of unknown duration. It could be four hours or two weeks. And for the next three years I might have a laptop that doesn't sleep properly when I close the lid, or that can't talk to the printer at the office but there's a forum thread somewhere where somebody thinks they solved it. One of the characteristics of any "pro" market is that these are people who simply aren't going to waste their time messing around with something when there's an alternative that just works and lets them go back to doing whatever it is they do that earns money.
- kluck 10y ago
  You bring up an interesting point: There are different kind of Pro's. For IT professionals my suggestion is valid in my opinion, but for all other professionals, like audio engineers or graphic designers, not so much. I understand that most professionals really see their pc as a tool that needs to work from day one. But as a professional knowing about the internals of such tool, I really see Apple's (and Microsoft's) computers so very differently.
  - terryf 10y ago
    I've been doing software development professionally for the last 20 years now. I used to build my own pc's and installed linux and had fun compiling the kernel and so on. After about 10 years of that I started to find it annoying. For the past 5, I haven't even looked at the insides of a computer. If the hardware breaks, I take it to the dealer to get it fixed. Somehow at one point spending time to make the tool work stopped being fun and got annoying. Maybe it's just me, but I have heard other people having the same type of experience. If I try to figure out, why, then the thought that pops into my mind is creating value. If I use the tool I have (2014 mbp) then I create value by writing software (you can argue about the external value if it, but for me it creates value by giving me money). If I spend time configuring the tool to make it work, I'm not creating value - the work I'm doing is not unique or interesting to anyone, it's just spending time. Perhaps as I get older and feel the amount of time left getting smaller and smaller, it drives focus away from spending time to creating new things (value).
rbanffy 10y ago
Genuinely curious here: why Arch and not Ubuntu or Fedora, considering the workloads will probably run on either Ubuntu or Red Hat/CentOS?
stuaxo 10y ago
Gnome 3 still isn't stable for mrle. Admittedly I am on Ubuntu, but it will freeze every few days. The sure fire way I can think of right now is trying to drag a window from one desktop to another in the overview. I'm quite good at breaking software, considering doing a semi regular video on favourite things that break.

by kluck 10y ago

mping 10y ago

Agreed. Everyone calls themselves pros, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty with Linux. Basically everyone's a pro-sumer. When I go to the mechanic he doesn't care if the tools get him dirty, he uses the best tools for the job, not for his clothes. I get that some people want to look at gorgeous UIs but nobody told me how that gets the work done. I want to use the best tool, and I try to define best as objectively as possible. Faster CPUs is better. Native support for docker is better. Walled garden is worse. macOs is better if you do ios apps. UI look&feel is debatable. Preference on terminal emulator is debatable. More memory is better. If you do devops and ssh onto linux boxes, linux is better. etc.

matt4077 10y ago
That's quite a romanticized stereotype of a mechanic. It's also the wrong analogy. The computer, in that analogy, is his tool. It may be the "best for the job", but the mechanic isn't usually mucking around in its internals. When the hydraulic ramp is broken, he calls someone. There is absolutely no need for someone writing software to ever open up his computer, or to compile the kernel they're running natively (if you're actually working at kernel-level, you'll do most of it in VMs). All that stuff can be fun, no doubt. But it's your hobby, and really no reason to feel like a superior "professional" vs. the lower classes of "prosumers".
- mping 10y ago
  My point is that the fact that you need to recompile a kernel or do some pkg install to get (for example) a machine that supports 32gb is never an excuse NOT to get it. And people do open their laptops (ex: upgrade from HDD to SSD) or install new kernels (ex: docker support). Don't take my post as a superior class claim. If I say I am a pro, and I say I need 32 gb I go and get it. Don't care if I have to spend a day installing arch because 32gb are worth it. Ofc theres all shades of gray and I understand people like to look to antialiased fonts instead of green-on-black, or don't like to learn a new package manager syntax but please that is absolutely not directly related to the delivery. The time you spend configuring a system is completely amortised over time, if the system is better.
- pavelludiq 10y ago
  True about the kernel, but I've recompiled many of my tools(for example linux repos sometimes provide outdated versions of packages and I need something newer). I often dig in source if I find bugs, or under-documented areas, sometimes I just want to know what is really happening. True, that doesn't make people who don't do that any less "pro", but it does make me sharper as a practitioner. I earn a deeper knowledge about my tools and my environment and occasionally pick up good ideas, or learn some horrible truth about a beloved tool. Programming is fairly unique in the sense that our tools and our products are made of essentially the same stuff. At the very least I consider this a form of exercise worth practicing on a regular basis. It's not strictly work, and not strictly a hobby.
bosie 10y ago
Can you list the software applications you are using? I tried to switch but there is basically no professional software on linux for non-server related tasks. Just replacing something like Fantastical (calendar) or OmniFocus (gtd) is hard/impossible. Other pain points are replacements for DevonThink (reference manager), Evernote (note taking), papers (bibliography/search), lightroom (photo management and editing), keyboard maestro (macros). list just goes on and on.
- mping 10y ago
  If thats what you do professionaly then use it. I use mostly zsh, IntelliJ, Emacs and a browser. My work is 90% terminal/editor/browser. Used to do audio back in the day, linux was crap, even windows today is crap (I have to use crazy drivers to be able to play guitar without lag, using asio4all. if I were a pro I wouldnt compile the kernel on linux to support preemption or whatever alsa requires these days, would go to macs). Also know a few people who did a phd and do alot of research, they say papers is the best app ever. Wouldn't recommend anything other than a mac for them.
  - bosie 10y ago
    Well, i also use vim/zsh/intellij as well as all the apps i listed above. Intellij on its own isn't good enough if i can't manage my tasks/calendar/research/notes... Hence I am curious how you do that?
    - mping 10y ago
      Personally, I stopped trying to find an app to do all of that. I put my notes in gmail drafts and try to keep them at a minimum, put my appoints in google calendar, and use short-lived bookmarks. For projects, I put tasks in the README so I'm always updating it. I painfully found out some time ago that I don't need much more than that - I try not to have lots of reminders/todos/etc. I don't do research or photo editing, or much more than coding anyway.
      - bosie 10y ago
inimino 10y ago
It's all debatable. Your OS choice is subjective, but if you like Linux and have fun with it that's as good a reason as any.
inimino 10y ago
It's all debatable. Your OS choice is subjective, but if you like Linux and have fun with it that's as good a reason as any.

beojan 10y ago

I would agree, except substitute Plasma for Gnome 3.

kluck 10y ago
Sure, that is just a matter of taste. But no matter which window manager you choose, running Linux, you are actually released from the Apple prison (technical and mental prison). (Speaking as a current user of an old MacBook Pro which is my first and last Apple product. Also I had an iPad but sold it long ago.)
- moftz 10y ago
  I smashed my Nexus 6P's screen and have been using a friend's old iPhone 4s in the meantime as my old Androids were either damaged or totally dead beyond recharging. Disregarding the sluggishness of the phone (it is 5 years old...), there are so many things that even a stock android rom will allow me to customize that iOS doesn't even think about. I just cracked open my old Droid Razr to jumpstart the battery so I could get back to android until my replacement 6P comes.

moftz 10y ago

As much as I love running Arch on my school laptop, I'd never run it on a laptop I would use for making money. I'd probably be using something like Fedora, a stable distro that doesn't break whenever I update en masse. I usually don't have too many huge bombs go off in my face but the most recent round of updates I applied totally killed my sound and some NetworkManager features. Annoying, not totally disasterous, but I've had some killer bugs in the past that have made me waste time on fixing issues when I should have been studying. If I'm getting paid, I'm not spending the time on fixing all the small issues that pop up with Arch. I love it otherwise. Sometimes it's fun to blow a few hours on a weekend fixing some random bug that has only ever happened to you. Sometime's its not fun and just really inconvenient. I always keep a backup Windows partition just in case something bad happens and I really need to use a computer for a bit or if I just need to run some random Window's only app.

Accacin 10y ago
Running Arch for years, and an update has never broken my system. It requires more maintenance, sure, but Arch is incredibly stable generally.
kluck 10y ago
If updates in Arch frequently "destroy" some features, you could do this: have two partitions, each with Arch on it and bootable from the boot manager. The first is minimal (rescue system) and the second is the one you use. Then before you make an update, boot into the rescue Arch, backup the second Arch partition's data, try the update and see how it goes ;)
- matt4077 10y ago
  Yeah... Or use basically any other OS and get shit done without every update degenerating into a day's worth fiddling.

inimino 10y ago

I think it's unfortunate you're being downvoted, but here's the thing: you go to the Apple store, buy a laptop, bring it home and plug it in and it works beautifully from day one. That's Apple's value proposition. (Subtract "beautifully" for Microsoft's.) Your plan means I'm signing up for a period of pain of unknown duration. It could be four hours or two weeks. And for the next three years I might have a laptop that doesn't sleep properly when I close the lid, or that can't talk to the printer at the office but there's a forum thread somewhere where somebody thinks they solved it. One of the characteristics of any "pro" market is that these are people who simply aren't going to waste their time messing around with something when there's an alternative that just works and lets them go back to doing whatever it is they do that earns money.

kluck 10y ago
You bring up an interesting point: There are different kind of Pro's. For IT professionals my suggestion is valid in my opinion, but for all other professionals, like audio engineers or graphic designers, not so much. I understand that most professionals really see their pc as a tool that needs to work from day one. But as a professional knowing about the internals of such tool, I really see Apple's (and Microsoft's) computers so very differently.
- terryf 10y ago
  I've been doing software development professionally for the last 20 years now. I used to build my own pc's and installed linux and had fun compiling the kernel and so on. After about 10 years of that I started to find it annoying. For the past 5, I haven't even looked at the insides of a computer. If the hardware breaks, I take it to the dealer to get it fixed. Somehow at one point spending time to make the tool work stopped being fun and got annoying. Maybe it's just me, but I have heard other people having the same type of experience. If I try to figure out, why, then the thought that pops into my mind is creating value. If I use the tool I have (2014 mbp) then I create value by writing software (you can argue about the external value if it, but for me it creates value by giving me money). If I spend time configuring the tool to make it work, I'm not creating value - the work I'm doing is not unique or interesting to anyone, it's just spending time. Perhaps as I get older and feel the amount of time left getting smaller and smaller, it drives focus away from spending time to creating new things (value).

rbanffy 10y ago

Genuinely curious here: why Arch and not Ubuntu or Fedora, considering the workloads will probably run on either Ubuntu or Red Hat/CentOS?

stuaxo 10y ago

Gnome 3 still isn't stable for mrle. Admittedly I am on Ubuntu, but it will freeze every few days. The sure fire way I can think of right now is trying to drag a window from one desktop to another in the overview. I'm quite good at breaking software, considering doing a semi regular video on favourite things that break.