9 ms·

I will refer to my earlier comment on these machines, they are only worth it if you have to be, or want to be, in OS X land. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?i

by drats 16y ago

I will refer to my earlier comment on these machines, they are only worth it if you have to be, or want to be, in OS X land. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1812730 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1812730 Outside of Apple PCs you can get a far better quality machine, and for my purposes a far better operating system in the form of Ubuntu. Quicksilver/Gnome-do, Safari/Chrome, Flash/Flash, nice fonts/nice fonts it's all even or Ubuntu with a slight edge until you get to apt-get which just slaughters OS X. Then there is freedom to tinker, the price difference and matching deployment/server OS. The reason apt-get is so far ahead of OS X is that OS X only has a tiny community, and for good reason considering how they have often treated it and that many of them are more focused on "striking gold" with an iPhone app. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but it's a sub-standard system with loads of tinkering instead of the "just works" experience of Linux. Good luck finding blogs/documentation/help when something goes wrong with OS X too. Perhaps Textmate/Ruby-on-Rails has first class support as a stack, but in so many other areas it's a wasteland. I suppose I am saying that yes fair enough it's a good machine, but just because you haven't used an SSD before and/or are attached to OS X for money don't try to imply, as is usually done, that Apple is lightyears ahead. It's behind in many areas and hardly worth the hype that is attached to the release.

greyman 16y ago
> the "just works" experience of Linux I am sorry to say that, but I never had such an experience (and i had to use Linux quite a lot in the past).
- jgrahamc 16y ago
  I've been carrying around laptop machines since just after the Osborne 1 and in more modern times I've had a succession of Thinkpads running DOS/Windows etc., other laptops running Linux (starting with SuSE and later using Ubuntu) and now I have a variety of MacBooks. The overall experience on laptops with Linux was horrid. Constant problems with drivers, upgrades and miscellaneous crap. The only truly good experience has been on the Mac with OS X. I have no trouble using all my familiar unixy tools and installing packages, but I do not spend my time with time wasting activities (oh, why doesn't the network driver work right now?(1)) and spend more on development. Overall, the Macs have been the most efficient machines I've used. Here's the thing: I'm not an Apple fan boy, I'm an effectiveness fan boy. The Macs win. Just last night I was programming a GSM/GPS module connected to my MacBook Pro via USB emulating a serial port. Module had to be programmed in Python and communicated with using AT commands. No problem at all using EMACS, Python, Tcl/Expect, make, etc. to get things working. (1) The usual response to that criticism is that its the hardware manufacturer's fault if there aren't open drivers for their device. As a user who needs to get stuff done, I simply don't care. The machine needs to work. Macs do.
  - drats 16y ago
    Can you put a date on your Thinkpads? Have you used one with Linux in the last 5 or even 10 years? I am comparing my last OS X experience 10.4/2007 macbook to a X200 Thinkpad with Ubuntu 10.10 (along with the Ubuntu desktop versions for the last 5 or so years... pretty simple to just pick a motherboard with supported chipsets), it's like night and day on the software side and the hardware specs are amazing compared to what you can buy with the same cash in Apple's walled garden. edit: You don't say anything about a thinkpad in your reply, so I guess you haven't used Linux on a quality laptop in some time. Even at 5 years, that's still quite a way out. I am open to criticism that things have changed since my 2007 experience too, please point anything out.
    - jgrahamc 16y ago
      The last laptop I installed Ubuntu on was in 2005. I still have that machine and use it occasionally. edit: The machine I installed it on was a Fujitsu Lifebook. I don't recall the actual model number but it was absolute top of the line machine when I bought it. In recent years (2009, 2010) I've used Linux on a couple of Acer machines which we have in the office. The user experience does not appear to have improved when it comes to dealing with annoying problems.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - AlisdairO 16y ago
      I installed fedora on a W510 a few weeks ago. It wouldn't suspend, because the kernel USB3 driver has no support for suspending. Having blacklisted the driver, I find that I can now suspend, but USB doesn't move back to the USB2 driver, it just doesn't work. Still working on that one. Fortunately, when attached to a base station the USB2 only ports on that work fine. Your other point that I take issue with is that you can get substantially better hardware outside of apple for the same price. In my experience, a laptop with similar power, battery life, weight, size, and build quality is not a great deal cheaper. Please note that I say this as a lover of linux in many ways. It's a fantastic desktop/server OS, and I think apple's desktop offerings are poor value in comparison, but I can't say I've ever had a good experience with linux on a laptop.
- JofArnold 16y ago
  +1 and I've used Linux for about 5 years (as my main OS until when I switched to OSX last year)
- drats 16y ago
  I used to have problems in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but then I did what Apple does with OS X and paid a little attention to the hardware and all the problems went away. Most Linux problems are people fighting against hardware, if you just pick your chipsets sensibly it all works out of the box. Beyond hardware I was simply staggered at how quickly I was up and running with a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.10. Everything was in the repository, Flash, Chrome, Gnome-do, codecs... I'd have been running around for an hour or two extra trying to get the same stuff for OS X. And then on the server-side you go to just about any software project and they have the recommended ways to install "sudo apt-get install oursoftware" there, as are copious post-install setup guides. Can't say I found the same experience on OS X (10.4) when I used it for a year and a bit, it was always a clunky struggle to get things installed.
  - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
    Some of the bundling of stuff with Linux is nice as a time saver on initial install. Having recently spent two days rebuilding a Windows machine (of which a large chunk was just tedious fetching and installing chrome, flash, shockwave, air, acrobat type stuff) this sort of thing is significant. I've never found OS X to be problematic for installs but the basic act of gathering stuff up to put on the machine is basically dead time. But the comment "if you pick your chipsets sensibly" - frankly most people don't want to have to do that sort of research. There are enough variables in the basic specification / vendor decisions without having to drop down to this level.
  - demallien 16y ago
    Most Linux problems are people fighting against hardware, if you just pick your chipsets sensibly it all works out of the box You see, right there is the problem. I don't have to think about that when using a Mac. The drivers are always there, and they always work. Despite your claims, Ubuntu and the other linuxes out there do not "just work". I have not yet met a linux laptop that didn't do weird things when I close then reopen the lid. I have yet to meet a linux laptop that deals with finding itself on different networks in an elegant manner. To put my comments into perspective, for my day job I write userland applications for a Gentoo-derived system, and I do my dev work on a Fedora laptop. At home, I develop for my own company on a Mac, targeting Mac applications. I like to think that I have a reasonable handle on the pros and cons of the two environments. About the only time I find linux compelling is when I want to use an open source package that isn't available on MacPorts. But then, I usually just go and grab a gentoo ebuild for configuring the package in question, create a ruby script to replicate the ebuild, and then install from tarball... It's not a big enough pain to justify sacrificing all of those yummy Apple APIs. If you're an app writer, Cocoa blows GTK out of the water.
- calloc 16y ago
  I was installing Ubuntu Linux on a older machine but with a new Nvidia graphics card and Ubuntu because of the new nouveau driver showed me a black screen while installing. I had to find a forum post on the issue only to find out that I had to edit the kernel boot parameters by adding something to the end of the boot line. That pretty much ended that little escapade into trying to get that working... I don't want to tinker with my machines. I want to set them up and have them go for months if not years. Just set up Boxee on ArchLinux, don't plan on touching that for a long time. It does what it is supposed to do (play movies and tv shows) and that is that.
k7d 16y ago
Would you care to point to "far better quality machine" out there? I haven't seen one...
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  The linked comments points out the Thinkpad X200. I have no opinion on that laptop, but he did point out another machine.
vtail 16y ago
> until you get to apt-get which just slaughters OS X So what's wrong with macports?
- bradendouglass 16y ago
  Homebrew in my mind blows away both of these "products." Dominates macports and blows away apt-get
- kenneth_reitz 16y ago
  Macports is horrible. Homebrew, however, is incredible.
Retric 16y ago
You gave an example that cost's more 1150 vs 999, and weighs more. Clearly the air is not the best of all possible worlds but if your going to knock a product you might want to consider you are not the target audience. After all cost and weight are at the top of many peoples lists when it comes to laptops.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  It also has a worse battery life which is a factor for most laptop users.
  - drats 16y ago
    Apple lists the 11" as having 5 hours and the 13" as having 7 hours. I have 8 hours on mine usually (for the price I paid I got a 9 cell battery, included in the 1.6kg weight).
    - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
      On an X200? The link given listed it as 4.4 hours as standard. Fair enough if you have but that's not the standard configuration that was linked.
b3b0p 16y ago
As others already asked, please point to a better quality machine. Also, I have never experienced this just works experience on Linux, Ubuntu included.
- alec 16y ago
  The ThinkPad X series. The X201 is similar in size, weight, and price, but can hold a modern CPU and gets an extra several hours of battery life. You can also get mobile internet access, although I'm not sure of what type. ThinkPad construction stands up to a whole lot, and the keyboard is fantastic. I have a five-year-old X40 that is still chugging along wonderfully - I'd like to get a new laptop, but I just can't justify it. I have only had one issue running Linux on it: because I use Debian, the non-free wireless firmware must be downloaded separately. I have never had a problem with Ubuntu, even the early versions I tried, because they include it. Intel has put a lot of work into getting all of their stuff supported in Linux, and it shows. I hear the Sony Z series has a similar story: similar size/weight/price, better hardware and battery life.
  - achompas 16y ago
    Agreed on the X201. The Vaio Z? Well, I looked into it over the weekend, and: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644570897 http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryD... If people are questioning the Air's price, they'll absolutely hate the Z's price. The cheapest Z has an i7, an optical drive, and a $500 premium over the base 13" Air.
    - cstross 16y ago
      I had a Sony TX3 back in the day -- the predecessor to the Z -- and yes, it ran Ubuntu rather nicely (unlike many Sony laptops it had a sensible enough chipset that the only device that I couldn't get working was the fingerprint reader). Alas: the price was comparable to a high-end Powerbook, it was relatively gutless (especially when the Core Solo was ramped down for power saving), murderously hard to upgrade the internals (upgrading the hard drive ... I looked up the engineering FM, turned white, and cancelled the whole idea), and had Sony's inimitable approach to warranty repairs if anything went wrong (i.e. six to eight weeks and a fat bill if you want your laptop back). (Oh, and the keycaps rubbed off the keyboard inside 18 months. Not just the letters, but the silver finish, all the way through to grey plastic. They did not build it for the long haul.) If Sony were to focus on quality of after-sales service for the high-end laptops, and maybe ditch the bloatware installs, they could probably compete with Apple. Their design aesthetic is there. But they fall down on the whole experience thing once you get it home (or in the office).
rufugee 16y ago
Absolutely agree with you. After spending time with both my Macbook Pro and my Lenovo T400s (running Ubuntu), it's the Lenovo I couldn't live without. Ubuntu is simply more developer-friendly. The only thing that OS X ever beats Ubuntu in is plugin support, and one could argue that's really not the fault of Ubuntu/Linux.
zohebv 16y ago
I have been using Ubuntu in a standard VM, VirtualBox and I have to strongly disagree with the simply works statement. At first I attempted to install Ubuntu on VirtualPC and it failed thanks to a keyboard driver issue, that had been first reported 6 months before and still wasn't fixed. I switched to VirtualBox and ever since, I have been struggling to maintain a resolution of 1650x1080 on Ubuntu, fighting with xrandr, cvt and xorg.conf all the time. Applying any kind of upgrade implies a strong possibility that my screen resolution will be set back to 800x600. I will admit that with the latest set of patches this month, I was able to fix my resolution back from 800x600 to 1650X1080 relatively painlessly , cvt, xrandr new, xrandr add, unlike previous occasions. However, the mouse integration with th host OS broke for some reason. I might need to re-install the drivers. A VirtualBox VM is fairly standard piece of virtual hardware and if Ubuntu can't deliver a decent experience on such a standard piece of hardware, it is hard to take statements like "it just works" seriously. Having said that the hassle free upgrade from version to version and the ease of use of apt-get is certainly unmatched on any other platform.
- zohebv 16y ago
  I can't believe it, I just booted my VM and the mouse driver fixed itself, but the resolution fell back to 800x600 yet again! And I hadn't even applied any patches!
- vdm 16y ago
  I agree completely. Installing Ubuntu server or desktop on Virtualbox/Windows was a 2-day nightmare the first time I did it (3 months ago), and reminds me of why I moved to Macs. Clearly this configuration is not being tested. If I can't install Ubuntu on Virtualbox, there is no way in hell I am going to buy a Thinkpad for Linux instead of a Mac and hope everything will 'simply work'.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    Well, try installing Mac OSX in VirtualBox and you will see, what a nightmare really is.
- vetinari 16y ago
Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
> just because you haven't used an SSD before The article actually mentions that his MacBook Pro (which he's comparing it to) does have an SSD so this isn't really a valid criticism of the article.
qjz 16y ago
I disagree. I've been (and still am) a hard core Linux user for over 10 years, installing it on almost every piece of hardware that's come my way. When it comes to laptops, Apple's offerings in the last few years have been well ahead of the pack and a joy to use. They're worth it for the hardware alone. The Air pushes the envelope further. As for OS X, it also "just works" and has a strong community, with plenty of high-quality documentation available from multiple sources. Apt-get is brilliant, but Apple's Software Update is also outstanding, and MacPorts can rival apt-get when it comes to managing FLOSS packages.
- bigfudge 16y ago
  try brew... much more reliable than ports, and puts stuff where you want it, although not quite the coverage yet.
ugh 16y ago
The ThinkPad X200 looks like an absolutely marvelous machine and I’m sure that it is built like a tank as are all other ThinkPad laptops. (My first laptop was a ≈2003 15" ThinkPad and I liked it very much.) I will probably not buy a ThinkPad or a comparable other non-Apple laptop in the next few years, though. Many people seem often puzzled by that. Isn’t the ThinkPad cheaper? Sure! Doesn’t it have comparable or better specs? Of course! Why would you …? Because I like the way a MacBook looks and feels! While that might be a perfectly valid reason for buying the 300€ more expensive coffee table that doesn’t seem to work with computers and I honestly don’t know why. I would have no second thoughts about buying the otherwise identical but 300€ more expensive laptop just because I like how sleek it is. This comment is in no way intended to refute anything of what you said. I can understand that some people prefer to only look at the specs and they should probably not buy any computer from Apple. I’m like that with some other things, too. It’s just to provide an additional perspective and to explain why I personally (and maybe other people) buy laptops from Apple even though competitors offer cheaper alternatives with better specs.
- scott_s 16y ago
  Not just the hardware itself, but I prefer the OSX desktop environment. I used a Linux desktop to get work done for four years. Turns out, OSX is what I wanted all along. I develop by sshing into Linux boxes, so what's on my desk doesn't have to be Linux.
tvon 16y ago
You pretty much go off into lala land after you mention fonts.
Yaggo 16y ago
With the current Ubuntu & your Air-like better quality machine (what's that by the way?), is it possible to have: 1) Sleep/suspend/resume 2) Hardware-accelerated OpenGL 3) Compiz/fusion or whatever it's called nowadays 4) Support for external monitor 5) No random crashes once per week with 1-4 enabled 6) Hardware-multiplexed sound output in all programs 7) No two months of tinkering to get 1-6 working I'm honestly asking this. Between 1998 and 2006, when I used various Linux laptops as my primary machine, I never had all the above issues solved. Maybe things have changed?
- mitjak 16y ago
  I have 10.10 installed on my MacBook Pro, and I can confirm the 1-5 are no longer an issue :) (resuming from sleep takes at least 2-3 times longer for me than on OS X though). I don't know enough to confirm 6, but if that is also covered then 7 should be as well.
  - albertzeyer 16y ago
    Does Linux still consumes more battery power than MacOSX? I had this issue in the past on my MacBook. It was very notable: on Linux the total battery time was about 60-70% of what I had with MacOSX. I did some debugging and while the kernel itself also consumed slightly more than MacOSX, the biggest problem where the applications, esp. the window manager (tested both Gnome and KDE). They do a lot of stuff and mostly prevent the CPU from going into low-power mode or wake it up all the time.
  - grammaton 16y ago
    Not so sure about that. I recently put Ubuntu on a low end Acer laptop - the kind that's been around for years - and still had problems with a lot of things.
- cowmixtoo 16y ago
  I'm running 10.10 on an ASUS 2.5 year old "gaming" laptop and a ASUS netbook and 1 - 7 seemed to be fixed. YMMV.
epo 16y ago
This is just ridiculous fanboyism, how old are you 13? "just works" experience of Linux? On a laptop? Really? OSX users spend loads of time tinkering with the system? Really? You are either completely detached from reality or a troll.
- epo 16y ago
  Perhaps a little intemperate, for which I apologise.
runjake 16y ago
You should go for more conciseness. Your comment reads like a rambling rant to me. It's very hard to get your point, which seems to be "I prefer Ubuntu". :) That said, you're right about the X200. It's an excellent machine. I had one for a while before this MBP, and after Mac OS X jumps the shark, I plan on heading back to Lenovo in the unlikely event their quality still matches the X200. I definitely prefer that hardware over the MBP. The only thing stopping me is my current preference for Mac OS X, and I'm too busy to be screwing around with hackintoshing a Thinkpad. Great, great machines, though.

by drats 16y ago

greyman 16y ago

> the "just works" experience of Linux I am sorry to say that, but I never had such an experience (and i had to use Linux quite a lot in the past).

jgrahamc 16y ago
I've been carrying around laptop machines since just after the Osborne 1 and in more modern times I've had a succession of Thinkpads running DOS/Windows etc., other laptops running Linux (starting with SuSE and later using Ubuntu) and now I have a variety of MacBooks. The overall experience on laptops with Linux was horrid. Constant problems with drivers, upgrades and miscellaneous crap. The only truly good experience has been on the Mac with OS X. I have no trouble using all my familiar unixy tools and installing packages, but I do not spend my time with time wasting activities (oh, why doesn't the network driver work right now?(1)) and spend more on development. Overall, the Macs have been the most efficient machines I've used. Here's the thing: I'm not an Apple fan boy, I'm an effectiveness fan boy. The Macs win. Just last night I was programming a GSM/GPS module connected to my MacBook Pro via USB emulating a serial port. Module had to be programmed in Python and communicated with using AT commands. No problem at all using EMACS, Python, Tcl/Expect, make, etc. to get things working. (1) The usual response to that criticism is that its the hardware manufacturer's fault if there aren't open drivers for their device. As a user who needs to get stuff done, I simply don't care. The machine needs to work. Macs do.
- drats 16y ago
  Can you put a date on your Thinkpads? Have you used one with Linux in the last 5 or even 10 years? I am comparing my last OS X experience 10.4/2007 macbook to a X200 Thinkpad with Ubuntu 10.10 (along with the Ubuntu desktop versions for the last 5 or so years... pretty simple to just pick a motherboard with supported chipsets), it's like night and day on the software side and the hardware specs are amazing compared to what you can buy with the same cash in Apple's walled garden. edit: You don't say anything about a thinkpad in your reply, so I guess you haven't used Linux on a quality laptop in some time. Even at 5 years, that's still quite a way out. I am open to criticism that things have changed since my 2007 experience too, please point anything out.
  - jgrahamc 16y ago
    The last laptop I installed Ubuntu on was in 2005. I still have that machine and use it occasionally. edit: The machine I installed it on was a Fujitsu Lifebook. I don't recall the actual model number but it was absolute top of the line machine when I bought it. In recent years (2009, 2010) I've used Linux on a couple of Acer machines which we have in the office. The user experience does not appear to have improved when it comes to dealing with annoying problems.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - AlisdairO 16y ago
    I installed fedora on a W510 a few weeks ago. It wouldn't suspend, because the kernel USB3 driver has no support for suspending. Having blacklisted the driver, I find that I can now suspend, but USB doesn't move back to the USB2 driver, it just doesn't work. Still working on that one. Fortunately, when attached to a base station the USB2 only ports on that work fine. Your other point that I take issue with is that you can get substantially better hardware outside of apple for the same price. In my experience, a laptop with similar power, battery life, weight, size, and build quality is not a great deal cheaper. Please note that I say this as a lover of linux in many ways. It's a fantastic desktop/server OS, and I think apple's desktop offerings are poor value in comparison, but I can't say I've ever had a good experience with linux on a laptop.
JofArnold 16y ago
+1 and I've used Linux for about 5 years (as my main OS until when I switched to OSX last year)
drats 16y ago
I used to have problems in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but then I did what Apple does with OS X and paid a little attention to the hardware and all the problems went away. Most Linux problems are people fighting against hardware, if you just pick your chipsets sensibly it all works out of the box. Beyond hardware I was simply staggered at how quickly I was up and running with a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.10. Everything was in the repository, Flash, Chrome, Gnome-do, codecs... I'd have been running around for an hour or two extra trying to get the same stuff for OS X. And then on the server-side you go to just about any software project and they have the recommended ways to install "sudo apt-get install oursoftware" there, as are copious post-install setup guides. Can't say I found the same experience on OS X (10.4) when I used it for a year and a bit, it was always a clunky struggle to get things installed.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  Some of the bundling of stuff with Linux is nice as a time saver on initial install. Having recently spent two days rebuilding a Windows machine (of which a large chunk was just tedious fetching and installing chrome, flash, shockwave, air, acrobat type stuff) this sort of thing is significant. I've never found OS X to be problematic for installs but the basic act of gathering stuff up to put on the machine is basically dead time. But the comment "if you pick your chipsets sensibly" - frankly most people don't want to have to do that sort of research. There are enough variables in the basic specification / vendor decisions without having to drop down to this level.
- demallien 16y ago
  Most Linux problems are people fighting against hardware, if you just pick your chipsets sensibly it all works out of the box You see, right there is the problem. I don't have to think about that when using a Mac. The drivers are always there, and they always work. Despite your claims, Ubuntu and the other linuxes out there do not "just work". I have not yet met a linux laptop that didn't do weird things when I close then reopen the lid. I have yet to meet a linux laptop that deals with finding itself on different networks in an elegant manner. To put my comments into perspective, for my day job I write userland applications for a Gentoo-derived system, and I do my dev work on a Fedora laptop. At home, I develop for my own company on a Mac, targeting Mac applications. I like to think that I have a reasonable handle on the pros and cons of the two environments. About the only time I find linux compelling is when I want to use an open source package that isn't available on MacPorts. But then, I usually just go and grab a gentoo ebuild for configuring the package in question, create a ruby script to replicate the ebuild, and then install from tarball... It's not a big enough pain to justify sacrificing all of those yummy Apple APIs. If you're an app writer, Cocoa blows GTK out of the water.
calloc 16y ago
I was installing Ubuntu Linux on a older machine but with a new Nvidia graphics card and Ubuntu because of the new nouveau driver showed me a black screen while installing. I had to find a forum post on the issue only to find out that I had to edit the kernel boot parameters by adding something to the end of the boot line. That pretty much ended that little escapade into trying to get that working... I don't want to tinker with my machines. I want to set them up and have them go for months if not years. Just set up Boxee on ArchLinux, don't plan on touching that for a long time. It does what it is supposed to do (play movies and tv shows) and that is that.

k7d 16y ago

Would you care to point to "far better quality machine" out there? I haven't seen one...

JoachimSchipper 16y ago
The linked comments points out the Thinkpad X200. I have no opinion on that laptop, but he did point out another machine.

vtail 16y ago

> until you get to apt-get which just slaughters OS X So what's wrong with macports?

bradendouglass 16y ago
Homebrew in my mind blows away both of these "products." Dominates macports and blows away apt-get
kenneth_reitz 16y ago
Macports is horrible. Homebrew, however, is incredible.

Retric 16y ago

You gave an example that cost's more 1150 vs 999, and weighs more. Clearly the air is not the best of all possible worlds but if your going to knock a product you might want to consider you are not the target audience. After all cost and weight are at the top of many peoples lists when it comes to laptops.

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
It also has a worse battery life which is a factor for most laptop users.
- drats 16y ago
  Apple lists the 11" as having 5 hours and the 13" as having 7 hours. I have 8 hours on mine usually (for the price I paid I got a 9 cell battery, included in the 1.6kg weight).
  - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
    On an X200? The link given listed it as 4.4 hours as standard. Fair enough if you have but that's not the standard configuration that was linked.

b3b0p 16y ago

As others already asked, please point to a better quality machine. Also, I have never experienced this just works experience on Linux, Ubuntu included.

alec 16y ago
The ThinkPad X series. The X201 is similar in size, weight, and price, but can hold a modern CPU and gets an extra several hours of battery life. You can also get mobile internet access, although I'm not sure of what type. ThinkPad construction stands up to a whole lot, and the keyboard is fantastic. I have a five-year-old X40 that is still chugging along wonderfully - I'd like to get a new laptop, but I just can't justify it. I have only had one issue running Linux on it: because I use Debian, the non-free wireless firmware must be downloaded separately. I have never had a problem with Ubuntu, even the early versions I tried, because they include it. Intel has put a lot of work into getting all of their stuff supported in Linux, and it shows. I hear the Sony Z series has a similar story: similar size/weight/price, better hardware and battery life.
- achompas 16y ago
  Agreed on the X201. The Vaio Z? Well, I looked into it over the weekend, and: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644570897 http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryD... If people are questioning the Air's price, they'll absolutely hate the Z's price. The cheapest Z has an i7, an optical drive, and a $500 premium over the base 13" Air.
  - cstross 16y ago
    I had a Sony TX3 back in the day -- the predecessor to the Z -- and yes, it ran Ubuntu rather nicely (unlike many Sony laptops it had a sensible enough chipset that the only device that I couldn't get working was the fingerprint reader). Alas: the price was comparable to a high-end Powerbook, it was relatively gutless (especially when the Core Solo was ramped down for power saving), murderously hard to upgrade the internals (upgrading the hard drive ... I looked up the engineering FM, turned white, and cancelled the whole idea), and had Sony's inimitable approach to warranty repairs if anything went wrong (i.e. six to eight weeks and a fat bill if you want your laptop back). (Oh, and the keycaps rubbed off the keyboard inside 18 months. Not just the letters, but the silver finish, all the way through to grey plastic. They did not build it for the long haul.) If Sony were to focus on quality of after-sales service for the high-end laptops, and maybe ditch the bloatware installs, they could probably compete with Apple. Their design aesthetic is there. But they fall down on the whole experience thing once you get it home (or in the office).

rufugee 16y ago

Absolutely agree with you. After spending time with both my Macbook Pro and my Lenovo T400s (running Ubuntu), it's the Lenovo I couldn't live without. Ubuntu is simply more developer-friendly. The only thing that OS X ever beats Ubuntu in is plugin support, and one could argue that's really not the fault of Ubuntu/Linux.

zohebv 16y ago

I have been using Ubuntu in a standard VM, VirtualBox and I have to strongly disagree with the simply works statement. At first I attempted to install Ubuntu on VirtualPC and it failed thanks to a keyboard driver issue, that had been first reported 6 months before and still wasn't fixed. I switched to VirtualBox and ever since, I have been struggling to maintain a resolution of 1650x1080 on Ubuntu, fighting with xrandr, cvt and xorg.conf all the time. Applying any kind of upgrade implies a strong possibility that my screen resolution will be set back to 800x600. I will admit that with the latest set of patches this month, I was able to fix my resolution back from 800x600 to 1650X1080 relatively painlessly , cvt, xrandr new, xrandr add, unlike previous occasions. However, the mouse integration with th host OS broke for some reason. I might need to re-install the drivers. A VirtualBox VM is fairly standard piece of virtual hardware and if Ubuntu can't deliver a decent experience on such a standard piece of hardware, it is hard to take statements like "it just works" seriously. Having said that the hassle free upgrade from version to version and the ease of use of apt-get is certainly unmatched on any other platform.

zohebv 16y ago
I can't believe it, I just booted my VM and the mouse driver fixed itself, but the resolution fell back to 800x600 yet again! And I hadn't even applied any patches!
vdm 16y ago
I agree completely. Installing Ubuntu server or desktop on Virtualbox/Windows was a 2-day nightmare the first time I did it (3 months ago), and reminds me of why I moved to Macs. Clearly this configuration is not being tested. If I can't install Ubuntu on Virtualbox, there is no way in hell I am going to buy a Thinkpad for Linux instead of a Mac and hope everything will 'simply work'.
- vetinari 16y ago
  Well, try installing Mac OSX in VirtualBox and you will see, what a nightmare really is.
vetinari 16y ago

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago

> just because you haven't used an SSD before The article actually mentions that his MacBook Pro (which he's comparing it to) does have an SSD so this isn't really a valid criticism of the article.

qjz 16y ago

I disagree. I've been (and still am) a hard core Linux user for over 10 years, installing it on almost every piece of hardware that's come my way. When it comes to laptops, Apple's offerings in the last few years have been well ahead of the pack and a joy to use. They're worth it for the hardware alone. The Air pushes the envelope further. As for OS X, it also "just works" and has a strong community, with plenty of high-quality documentation available from multiple sources. Apt-get is brilliant, but Apple's Software Update is also outstanding, and MacPorts can rival apt-get when it comes to managing FLOSS packages.

bigfudge 16y ago
try brew... much more reliable than ports, and puts stuff where you want it, although not quite the coverage yet.

ugh 16y ago

The ThinkPad X200 looks like an absolutely marvelous machine and I’m sure that it is built like a tank as are all other ThinkPad laptops. (My first laptop was a ≈2003 15" ThinkPad and I liked it very much.) I will probably not buy a ThinkPad or a comparable other non-Apple laptop in the next few years, though. Many people seem often puzzled by that. Isn’t the ThinkPad cheaper? Sure! Doesn’t it have comparable or better specs? Of course! Why would you …? Because I like the way a MacBook looks and feels! While that might be a perfectly valid reason for buying the 300€ more expensive coffee table that doesn’t seem to work with computers and I honestly don’t know why. I would have no second thoughts about buying the otherwise identical but 300€ more expensive laptop just because I like how sleek it is. This comment is in no way intended to refute anything of what you said. I can understand that some people prefer to only look at the specs and they should probably not buy any computer from Apple. I’m like that with some other things, too. It’s just to provide an additional perspective and to explain why I personally (and maybe other people) buy laptops from Apple even though competitors offer cheaper alternatives with better specs.

scott_s 16y ago
Not just the hardware itself, but I prefer the OSX desktop environment. I used a Linux desktop to get work done for four years. Turns out, OSX is what I wanted all along. I develop by sshing into Linux boxes, so what's on my desk doesn't have to be Linux.

tvon 16y ago

You pretty much go off into lala land after you mention fonts.

Yaggo 16y ago

With the current Ubuntu & your Air-like better quality machine (what's that by the way?), is it possible to have: 1) Sleep/suspend/resume 2) Hardware-accelerated OpenGL 3) Compiz/fusion or whatever it's called nowadays 4) Support for external monitor 5) No random crashes once per week with 1-4 enabled 6) Hardware-multiplexed sound output in all programs 7) No two months of tinkering to get 1-6 working I'm honestly asking this. Between 1998 and 2006, when I used various Linux laptops as my primary machine, I never had all the above issues solved. Maybe things have changed?

mitjak 16y ago
I have 10.10 installed on my MacBook Pro, and I can confirm the 1-5 are no longer an issue :) (resuming from sleep takes at least 2-3 times longer for me than on OS X though). I don't know enough to confirm 6, but if that is also covered then 7 should be as well.
- albertzeyer 16y ago
  Does Linux still consumes more battery power than MacOSX? I had this issue in the past on my MacBook. It was very notable: on Linux the total battery time was about 60-70% of what I had with MacOSX. I did some debugging and while the kernel itself also consumed slightly more than MacOSX, the biggest problem where the applications, esp. the window manager (tested both Gnome and KDE). They do a lot of stuff and mostly prevent the CPU from going into low-power mode or wake it up all the time.
- grammaton 16y ago
  Not so sure about that. I recently put Ubuntu on a low end Acer laptop - the kind that's been around for years - and still had problems with a lot of things.
cowmixtoo 16y ago
I'm running 10.10 on an ASUS 2.5 year old "gaming" laptop and a ASUS netbook and 1 - 7 seemed to be fixed. YMMV.

epo 16y ago

This is just ridiculous fanboyism, how old are you 13? "just works" experience of Linux? On a laptop? Really? OSX users spend loads of time tinkering with the system? Really? You are either completely detached from reality or a troll.

epo 16y ago
Perhaps a little intemperate, for which I apologise.

runjake 16y ago

You should go for more conciseness. Your comment reads like a rambling rant to me. It's very hard to get your point, which seems to be "I prefer Ubuntu". :) That said, you're right about the X200. It's an excellent machine. I had one for a while before this MBP, and after Mac OS X jumps the shark, I plan on heading back to Lenovo in the unlikely event their quality still matches the X200. I definitely prefer that hardware over the MBP. The only thing stopping me is my current preference for Mac OS X, and I'm too busy to be screwing around with hackintoshing a Thinkpad. Great, great machines, though.