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I was feeling pulled back towards non-mac laptops for a variety of reasons, but I think I just came up with a good strategy looking forward. If I were just doin
by japhyr 7y ago
I was feeling pulled back towards non-mac laptops for a variety of reasons, but I think I just came up with a good strategy looking forward. If I were just doing my own dev work, I'd probably have a well-specced thinkpad running some version of linux. But I need to support people using all OSes, so I need a mac. If I need a mac, I'd like that to be my only computer, and just run windows and linux in VMs.
I got a 13" MacBook pro a couple years ago, when I started needing to support mac users more consistently. I was on a budget, so I got an 8GB version. I wanted to upgrade, so last fall I bought the last new 13" I could find online that still had physical function keys, with 16GB ram. I was having trouble running VMs effectively with the 8GB system. I would love to have 32GB ram, but I don't want to go to a 15" or 16" laptop.
I thought I would sell my old 8GB laptop, but I found a really good use for it. I work at home, and I have a multiple-monitor setup that's really nice to do extended development work on. I don't like to disconnect my laptop if I don't have to, but I want to work in other parts of the house sometimes. I realized I could just use the older MacBook as a thin client when I'm not doing memory-intensive work. It's been nice to be able to do more casual work in other parts of the house.
That got me thinking, though - with this setup, there's no reason I need a laptop to power the desktop setup. It's been over a decade since I've owned a desktop computer, but I think I might buy a mac mini next time I upgrade, and keep the 16GB laptop as a thin client around the house, and also have a decent laptop to travel with.
Any thoughts on this approach?
- speedgoose 7y agoThe Mac mini is terribly overpriced. If you are going to replace your laptop by a desktop computer, get a descent GPU. That's nice.
- oneplane 7y agoHow so? I have yet to find a cheaper system with that many Thunderbolt 3 ports. If I didn't need macOS and Thunderbolt 3 then no, the Mac Mini makes no sense at all.
- mattmoose21 7y agoYeah I would go with a Mac Pro.\s
- ericd 7y agoIt has some features that are hard to find in that form factor, like 10GbE.
- lostgame 7y agoIt’s an unfortunate and expensive approach that would unnecessary if Apple would only at least step short of soldering the SSD/RAM to the Logic Board. Years ago, we didn’t have this problem. I don’t know I’ll ever be able to buy an Apple laptop again at this point. I refuse to pay $1200+ for something I can’t upgrade a year or two later.
- appleiigs 7y agoNot sure on your exact requirements, but I did the opposite. High end desktop, dual boots to PC and Linux. Then got the cheapest macbook air. Reduced the apple tax this way. Got tons of performance for cheap, check out latest AMD CPUs.
- japhyr 7y agoThat is a great idea! I've been wanting to go back to Linux as my main OS for a long time, but I was in a Windows world when I was teaching and then I had to have a mac. Thanks!
- ericd 7y agoI do something like this - Macs as thin clients mostly used to SSH into a Threadripper workstation running Ubuntu. Add tmux with automatic attaching upon login via ssh to make your ssh sessions persistent. Add port forwarding to your router and a cronjob to your workstation to periodically ping a dynamic dns provider (entrydns works well), and you can ssh into your workstation from anywhere you have internet access. It works really well, and means you never have to futz around with things like homebrew.
- shmoogy 7y agoI use iPad as my thin client, LTE, better battery life, Blink terminal is great. Bought a 16 inch 2019 MacBook and forgot how annoying it is running things locally (weight and heat).