7 ms·

I don't understand it either, the thing that always gets me is most developers setting up vagrant on their Mac just to get a working environment. Cut the bulls

I don't understand it either, the thing that always gets me is most developers setting up vagrant on their Mac just to get a working environment. Cut the bullshit and just run Linux on the bare metal, your program will run faster, and your laptop battery life won't be halved. You will have to claw my x201 out of my cold dead hands, I've not found a single notebook (even the newer ThinkPads) that are as comfortable to use. I've got no crummy trackpad wasting space and a 16:10 display that's designed for work, and not watching cat videos. Spare parts are dirt cheap, and since the magnesium alloy rollcage is on the inside I don't have to worry about ugly dents, I just swap plastic panels out on the cheap when I think they are getting a bit too worn.

flamedoge 10y ago
> not watching cat videos. yea. ok edit: Why not watch cat videos?
jamiesonbecker 10y ago
I've been a thinkpad user since 386 days, and love my x201 and x220, but I prefer the Dell Rugged Extreme (price notwithstanding) -- feels like an old school bombproof (literally in this case) thinkpad... but I really miss the UltraNav.
- gravypod 10y ago
  If you want there was a P series of thinkpads that are designed to be milspec and IP60 something.
  - rincebrain 10y ago
    Not all the P-series, as far as I can see - the P50/P50s/P70 do, but the P40 Yoga notably doesn't (and I'd be impressed if they had made a hybrid tablet/laptop that did). (And here I thought the P-series was "just" what the W series morphed into...)
santoriv 10y ago
Yeah I bought a pretty expensive Macbook Pro earlier this year and recently ended up switching from OSX to Ubuntu after I got tired of dealing with all sorts of random Docker issues. To my surprise, I've found Linux to feel faster and be somewhat more pleasant than OSX. Now I sometimes wish I had just spent half as much money getting a more powerful (bulkier) laptop that just ran Linux.
- brightball 10y ago
  Docker outside of Linux has been a major pain point for a while. I'm switching to a Linux laptop and native Docker is one of the things I'm most looking forward to.
  - mmatoscom 10y ago
    I know the feeling. I was sick of using company's laptop (ideapad) to everything I needed to (messing personal stuff together), and went forward looking for a new (used) laptop in internet classified boards. I wanted a well built, portable (like 13" max), and mint condition used laptop. Went to Docker Slack and asked what were their experience running docker on mac. There are still some improvements to be made there, and besides I dont want to run VMs again unless its totally needed (like a windows environment in a vm, or coreos on qemu as I use here for k8s testing, but not docker itself). I know xhyve is transparent and everything, but lets face it, its just another virtual machine running docker, from boot2docker to xhyve was a no-go to me. So I decided to go for a Linux laptop (using linux since 98, in fact I got excited about it). My options for a decent linux laptop concerning portability were the Dell XPS, or a Thinkpad X260. So I started to watch reviews on youtube for both laptops. Doing so I found that the Dell has a coil whine issue that would really drive me crazy having a laptop screaming right out of the box. It was a no-go for me. If you want to check what I am talking about, watch this https://youtu.be/cwR4CWzDtfQ https://youtu.be/cwR4CWzDtfQ. My boss has one and I started to listen to the laptop and yes it is kinda noisy. So there was this thinkpad. At amazon the X260 was USD 2750. Far from my spending range right now, so I decided to check classifieds for a used one. Keeping in mind the linux laptop for docker development, I found a thinkpad x240 which is a beast - 12,5"/i7 proc/8GB ram/256 ssd. its silent, portable enough, feels well built as most thinkpads, its possible to upgrade the memory to 16GB when I have the resources for it, has back-light keyboard, a nice keyboard indeed. The trackpad is sort of weird, but I am getting used to it. The version I got is a touchscreen HD display and not FHD, so my max res is 1366x768. Using the gnome tweak tool I was able to change some fonts and icons size, its just great now, feels like HD for me. Has 2 video ports, VGA and miniDV. it has card reader. Even a sim card modem built in. It was USD 500. I dont see myself changing to another one soon. And docker is flying over here - as well qemu. Cheers mates.
noir_lord 10y ago
> Cut the bullshit and just run Linux on the bare metal, I run Linux on Linux via vagrant, it's not about my program running faster it's about isolating a client projects dependencies from each other so when I have to work on that system that is still in production on PHP Current-1 or Ruby-1 I don't have to fuck with my host OS at all. In fact I have very few developer bits and bobs installed on the host (mostly just JetBrains stuff) and all the actual tooling is run in the VM, this makes for far easier deploys for myself since my process is pull projectname/(site||name), pull projectname/vagrant, vagrant up. It takes me less than 30 minutes from reinstalling to having half a dozen projects with all their weird dependencies and cruft installed and I never have to worry about breaking something else or needing to blow away a machine for some reason. I'm happy to trade some performance for running damn near everything in a guest OS for that.
- thesandlord 10y ago
  Curious, why Vagrant and not Docker? Then you don't need to run a VM, but still get the same isolation.
  - mmatoscom 10y ago
    well pointed!
  - luos 10y ago
    I am guessing is that when he started working on this stuff docker was in it's infancy (still is IMHO), and had no reason/time to port it.
    - BlackFingolfin 10y ago
      Or you could have glanced at the article and seen that your guess is wide off the mark.. ;-)
      - jholman 10y ago
        Which article?
chris_wot 10y ago
I thinkimux is rather hit and miss when it comes to battery life on Linux. I've never really quite understood why, as I though ACPI is meant to handle this. But I'm not terribly au fait with this interface, so there might be good reasons, I know Torcalds criticised it early on as a "design disaster" and there were and I think still are concerns about the way that bytecode has unfettered access to the system.
jclardy 10y ago
Yeah, I wouldn't want a crummy windows trackpad taking up space either ;) also all Apple laptops are 16:10, other than the 11" MacBook Air.
- likeclockwork 10y ago
  What's a Windows trackpad?
gonzo 10y ago
> You will have to claw my x201 out of my cold dead hands, I've not found a single notebook (even the newer ThinkPads) that are as comfortable to use. I've got no crummy trackpad wasting space and a 16:10 display that's designed for work, and not watching cat videos. the X201 has a trackpad. The X1 carbon (and several other models) have 2560x1440 displays.
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  The x201 was the last ThinkPad to offer NOT having a Trackpad, you just swap the palmrest. http://mos6581.com/pictures/thinkpad/201-palmrest.jpg http://mos6581.com/pictures/thinkpad/201-palmrest.jpg
tvon 10y ago
> (...) most developers setting up vagrant on their Mac just to get a working environment. What kind of working environment requires setting up Vagrant on OSX? It's a Unix-based OS, if you're doing any web development you can do it on the host system.
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  You generally develop on the platform that your software will end up running on, and nobody in their right mind uses OSX on a server.
  - Const-me 10y ago
    If you have a SaaS product that needs 3D rendering on the server, Windows and Linux servers that have a GPU are targeted towards GPGPU and are expensive to rent. MacPros have two descent AMD FirePro GPUs but much cheaper to rent.
  - tvon 10y ago
    If you are trying to match your production platform then you will use a VM of some sort in Linux anyway. If you are not trying to match your production platform then you can develop just fine on OSX.
- DCoder 10y ago
  Isolation and reproduction. For one thing, you want the development environment to be as similar to production as possible – same OS version, same webserver version, same DB version, same dependencies, no unwanted extras that differ between environments. For another thing, you don't want to have to solve conflicts between project A and completely unrelated project T if you need to work on them both.
  - tvon 10y ago
    If you care about isolation and reproduction then you're using a VM anyway and the host OS is completely irrelevant.

flamedoge 10y ago

> not watching cat videos. yea. ok edit: Why not watch cat videos?

jamiesonbecker 10y ago

I've been a thinkpad user since 386 days, and love my x201 and x220, but I prefer the Dell Rugged Extreme (price notwithstanding) -- feels like an old school bombproof (literally in this case) thinkpad... but I really miss the UltraNav.

gravypod 10y ago
If you want there was a P series of thinkpads that are designed to be milspec and IP60 something.
- rincebrain 10y ago
  Not all the P-series, as far as I can see - the P50/P50s/P70 do, but the P40 Yoga notably doesn't (and I'd be impressed if they had made a hybrid tablet/laptop that did). (And here I thought the P-series was "just" what the W series morphed into...)

santoriv 10y ago

Yeah I bought a pretty expensive Macbook Pro earlier this year and recently ended up switching from OSX to Ubuntu after I got tired of dealing with all sorts of random Docker issues. To my surprise, I've found Linux to feel faster and be somewhat more pleasant than OSX. Now I sometimes wish I had just spent half as much money getting a more powerful (bulkier) laptop that just ran Linux.

brightball 10y ago
Docker outside of Linux has been a major pain point for a while. I'm switching to a Linux laptop and native Docker is one of the things I'm most looking forward to.
- mmatoscom 10y ago
  I know the feeling. I was sick of using company's laptop (ideapad) to everything I needed to (messing personal stuff together), and went forward looking for a new (used) laptop in internet classified boards. I wanted a well built, portable (like 13" max), and mint condition used laptop. Went to Docker Slack and asked what were their experience running docker on mac. There are still some improvements to be made there, and besides I dont want to run VMs again unless its totally needed (like a windows environment in a vm, or coreos on qemu as I use here for k8s testing, but not docker itself). I know xhyve is transparent and everything, but lets face it, its just another virtual machine running docker, from boot2docker to xhyve was a no-go to me. So I decided to go for a Linux laptop (using linux since 98, in fact I got excited about it). My options for a decent linux laptop concerning portability were the Dell XPS, or a Thinkpad X260. So I started to watch reviews on youtube for both laptops. Doing so I found that the Dell has a coil whine issue that would really drive me crazy having a laptop screaming right out of the box. It was a no-go for me. If you want to check what I am talking about, watch this https://youtu.be/cwR4CWzDtfQ https://youtu.be/cwR4CWzDtfQ. My boss has one and I started to listen to the laptop and yes it is kinda noisy. So there was this thinkpad. At amazon the X260 was USD 2750. Far from my spending range right now, so I decided to check classifieds for a used one. Keeping in mind the linux laptop for docker development, I found a thinkpad x240 which is a beast - 12,5"/i7 proc/8GB ram/256 ssd. its silent, portable enough, feels well built as most thinkpads, its possible to upgrade the memory to 16GB when I have the resources for it, has back-light keyboard, a nice keyboard indeed. The trackpad is sort of weird, but I am getting used to it. The version I got is a touchscreen HD display and not FHD, so my max res is 1366x768. Using the gnome tweak tool I was able to change some fonts and icons size, its just great now, feels like HD for me. Has 2 video ports, VGA and miniDV. it has card reader. Even a sim card modem built in. It was USD 500. I dont see myself changing to another one soon. And docker is flying over here - as well qemu. Cheers mates.

noir_lord 10y ago

> Cut the bullshit and just run Linux on the bare metal, I run Linux on Linux via vagrant, it's not about my program running faster it's about isolating a client projects dependencies from each other so when I have to work on that system that is still in production on PHP Current-1 or Ruby-1 I don't have to fuck with my host OS at all. In fact I have very few developer bits and bobs installed on the host (mostly just JetBrains stuff) and all the actual tooling is run in the VM, this makes for far easier deploys for myself since my process is pull projectname/(site||name), pull projectname/vagrant, vagrant up. It takes me less than 30 minutes from reinstalling to having half a dozen projects with all their weird dependencies and cruft installed and I never have to worry about breaking something else or needing to blow away a machine for some reason. I'm happy to trade some performance for running damn near everything in a guest OS for that.

thesandlord 10y ago
Curious, why Vagrant and not Docker? Then you don't need to run a VM, but still get the same isolation.
- mmatoscom 10y ago
  well pointed!
- luos 10y ago
  I am guessing is that when he started working on this stuff docker was in it's infancy (still is IMHO), and had no reason/time to port it.
  - BlackFingolfin 10y ago
    Or you could have glanced at the article and seen that your guess is wide off the mark.. ;-)
    - jholman 10y ago
      Which article?

chris_wot 10y ago

I thinkimux is rather hit and miss when it comes to battery life on Linux. I've never really quite understood why, as I though ACPI is meant to handle this. But I'm not terribly au fait with this interface, so there might be good reasons, I know Torcalds criticised it early on as a "design disaster" and there were and I think still are concerns about the way that bytecode has unfettered access to the system.

jclardy 10y ago

Yeah, I wouldn't want a crummy windows trackpad taking up space either ;) also all Apple laptops are 16:10, other than the 11" MacBook Air.

likeclockwork 10y ago
What's a Windows trackpad?

gonzo 10y ago

> You will have to claw my x201 out of my cold dead hands, I've not found a single notebook (even the newer ThinkPads) that are as comfortable to use. I've got no crummy trackpad wasting space and a 16:10 display that's designed for work, and not watching cat videos. the X201 has a trackpad. The X1 carbon (and several other models) have 2560x1440 displays.

amiga-workbench 10y ago
The x201 was the last ThinkPad to offer NOT having a Trackpad, you just swap the palmrest. http://mos6581.com/pictures/thinkpad/201-palmrest.jpg http://mos6581.com/pictures/thinkpad/201-palmrest.jpg

tvon 10y ago

> (...) most developers setting up vagrant on their Mac just to get a working environment. What kind of working environment requires setting up Vagrant on OSX? It's a Unix-based OS, if you're doing any web development you can do it on the host system.

amiga-workbench 10y ago
You generally develop on the platform that your software will end up running on, and nobody in their right mind uses OSX on a server.
- Const-me 10y ago
  If you have a SaaS product that needs 3D rendering on the server, Windows and Linux servers that have a GPU are targeted towards GPGPU and are expensive to rent. MacPros have two descent AMD FirePro GPUs but much cheaper to rent.
- tvon 10y ago
  If you are trying to match your production platform then you will use a VM of some sort in Linux anyway. If you are not trying to match your production platform then you can develop just fine on OSX.
DCoder 10y ago
Isolation and reproduction. For one thing, you want the development environment to be as similar to production as possible – same OS version, same webserver version, same DB version, same dependencies, no unwanted extras that differ between environments. For another thing, you don't want to have to solve conflicts between project A and completely unrelated project T if you need to work on them both.
- tvon 10y ago
  If you care about isolation and reproduction then you're using a VM anyway and the host OS is completely irrelevant.