5 ms·

I am in the same boat. I think its time to finally make the switch to Windows and/or Linux. Lots of folks on HN recommend Thinkpads.

tohmasch 6y ago
I switched and I love it. I highly recommend it.
- beervirus 6y ago
  Yes I also love Windows and/or Linux, it are great.
crispyporkbites 6y ago
Beware that battery life on linux thinkpads is atrocious, especially if you go for a comparable screen to a macbook.
- nix23 6y ago
  NoNo that's not true, i have a X250 with OpenSuse and the batteries hold around 12h, with Windows it was about 13-14h, FreeBSD got to 9h and Plan9(9Front) 4h...but 9Front did not see the second battery...and they are old, main-battery 80% capacity, external 70% Tested with a repeating site load pattern of Firefox (Open Firefox, load 4 Websites, reload them, close Firefox, wait 30 seconds, repeat, on 9Front with mothra) EDIT: All of them without any tweaks (except FreeBSD with powerd but without special flags), screen on 40% EDIT2: If i remember correctly when the laptop was new it had power for about 18-20h with Windows
  - crispyporkbites 6y ago
    X250 is a 1366 x 768 screen right? That's not comparable to a Macbook screen e.g. 3072×1920(!) on the latest 16 inch screen, and at 40% brightness you'd struggle out and about (which is where you need battery life, and again has no comparison to the macbook 500 nits)
    - nix23 6y ago
      No i have the 1920x1080 12.5", why is that not comparable? Bigger laptop 16" more space for battery's, and yes in the Sun i struggle at 40% brightness. But 40% brightness is what i use 99% at time.
mrwnmonm 6y ago
I am on Thinkpad T480, switched from ubuntu to windows, and finds wsl to be awesome.
- sgt 6y ago
  It's pretty sad when Linux users have given up on the Linux desktop and decided to just use Windows. Having WSL is surely a great advantage so you can get the job done, but it gives a feeling of a cobbled together system that is a reaction to the failure of Linux on the desktop.
  - toyg 6y ago
    There is still no business model for Linux on the desktop, sadly. Ubuntu was the closest we got to having a "Redhat for desktops" and they too bailed to the server/cloud space (and phones, and anything that promised a bit of $$$).
    - cyberdrunk 6y ago
      The only "business" model I see is when someone like Musk decides to pour billions into freeing humanity from Windows. Ironically, it could be Gates Foundation's next big charity project!
      - toyg 6y ago
        That's basically what Shuttleworth tried, and it didn't work. Alright, he's no Musk and certainly no Gates, but he did spend a good chunk of his own change.
- derriz 6y ago
  I find WSL sits uncomfortably in that space between cygwin and running a fully isolated VM using VirtualBox. My initial “wow” response evaporated quickly - especially the rough edges around accessing filesystems and I quickly went back to Cygwin and Debian running in a VM.
foldr 6y ago
I don't see the logic of this. If you like PC laptops better than the current Mac offerings, then you should have switched already. Otherwise, best to wait and see what Apple come out with in a few months. If the x86 emulation is as fast as they say, and the laptop processors are significantly beefier than the A12, then the whole transition might turn out to be a total non-issue for developers. I'd hate to switch to a big clunky thinkpad and then find that Apple had, say, released a 12" MacBook with good performance.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  > then you should have switched already. Until late last year the option was terrible keyboards or PC. So I waited. Then it was GPU fan issues (16" MacBook Pro). So I waited. Now its a deprecated platform or wait or PC.
  - foldr 6y ago
    You're never going to buy any Apple product if you listen to people whining online. Every time Apple release anything, there is a contingent of people saying that it sucks, it's unusable, etc. etc. The 4th gen butterfly keyboards work fine. I have two (personal MacBook Air and work MacBook Pro) and have had no reliability issues whatsoever over the past year. I also love the feel of the keyboards. I don't have any personal experience with the fan noise issue, but I'd advise trying to get some first-hand data on it. Whatever laptop you switch to is also going to have its issues and imperfections. There just isn't a contingent of people loudly complaining about them all over the internet. So for example, here is a comment elsewhere in this thread about using Linux on a thinkpad: >If you feel that you don't need a 4k resolution screen, then I would recommend getting one with a regular HD or a Quad HD screen instead. Scaling is still not optimal on X11, and it seems to take at least some toll on the CPU as well (which will also result in your fans spinning up from time to time).
    - encom 6y ago
      >contingent of people saying that it sucks It's about the same size as the group of Apple apologists, neck deep in the reality distortion field, claiming that Apple is infallible and that you're holding it wrong.
jordanab 6y ago
I made the switch from a Macbook Pro to a Thinkpad X1 Extreme with Linux two years ago, and I'm still pretty happy about it. Some things to consider if you install Linux on a Thinkpad: - If you use your laptop on the go regularly, you have to know that both battery life and the trackpad are considerbly worse than on a Mac. I personally am not too bothered by this, as I mostly use my Thinkpad stationary. - If you feel that you don't need a 4k resolution screen, then I would recommend getting one with a regular HD or a Quad HD screen instead. Scaling is still not optimal on X11, and it seems to take at least some toll on the CPU as well (which will also result in your fans spinning up from time to time). - If you get a model with Nvidia discrete graphics, then I would recommend the PopOS distro. They have a version that comes with the Nvidia driver preinstalled, and it also preconfigures NVidia Optimus for you, making it easy to switch between integrated and discrete graphics whenever your needs change (eg. on-to-go vs stationary)

tohmasch 6y ago

I switched and I love it. I highly recommend it.

beervirus 6y ago
Yes I also love Windows and/or Linux, it are great.

crispyporkbites 6y ago

Beware that battery life on linux thinkpads is atrocious, especially if you go for a comparable screen to a macbook.

nix23 6y ago
NoNo that's not true, i have a X250 with OpenSuse and the batteries hold around 12h, with Windows it was about 13-14h, FreeBSD got to 9h and Plan9(9Front) 4h...but 9Front did not see the second battery...and they are old, main-battery 80% capacity, external 70% Tested with a repeating site load pattern of Firefox (Open Firefox, load 4 Websites, reload them, close Firefox, wait 30 seconds, repeat, on 9Front with mothra) EDIT: All of them without any tweaks (except FreeBSD with powerd but without special flags), screen on 40% EDIT2: If i remember correctly when the laptop was new it had power for about 18-20h with Windows
- crispyporkbites 6y ago
  X250 is a 1366 x 768 screen right? That's not comparable to a Macbook screen e.g. 3072×1920(!) on the latest 16 inch screen, and at 40% brightness you'd struggle out and about (which is where you need battery life, and again has no comparison to the macbook 500 nits)
  - nix23 6y ago
    No i have the 1920x1080 12.5", why is that not comparable? Bigger laptop 16" more space for battery's, and yes in the Sun i struggle at 40% brightness. But 40% brightness is what i use 99% at time.

mrwnmonm 6y ago

I am on Thinkpad T480, switched from ubuntu to windows, and finds wsl to be awesome.

sgt 6y ago
It's pretty sad when Linux users have given up on the Linux desktop and decided to just use Windows. Having WSL is surely a great advantage so you can get the job done, but it gives a feeling of a cobbled together system that is a reaction to the failure of Linux on the desktop.
- toyg 6y ago
  There is still no business model for Linux on the desktop, sadly. Ubuntu was the closest we got to having a "Redhat for desktops" and they too bailed to the server/cloud space (and phones, and anything that promised a bit of $$$).
  - cyberdrunk 6y ago
    The only "business" model I see is when someone like Musk decides to pour billions into freeing humanity from Windows. Ironically, it could be Gates Foundation's next big charity project!
    - toyg 6y ago
      That's basically what Shuttleworth tried, and it didn't work. Alright, he's no Musk and certainly no Gates, but he did spend a good chunk of his own change.
derriz 6y ago
I find WSL sits uncomfortably in that space between cygwin and running a fully isolated VM using VirtualBox. My initial “wow” response evaporated quickly - especially the rough edges around accessing filesystems and I quickly went back to Cygwin and Debian running in a VM.

foldr 6y ago

I don't see the logic of this. If you like PC laptops better than the current Mac offerings, then you should have switched already. Otherwise, best to wait and see what Apple come out with in a few months. If the x86 emulation is as fast as they say, and the laptop processors are significantly beefier than the A12, then the whole transition might turn out to be a total non-issue for developers. I'd hate to switch to a big clunky thinkpad and then find that Apple had, say, released a 12" MacBook with good performance.

teruakohatu 6y ago
> then you should have switched already. Until late last year the option was terrible keyboards or PC. So I waited. Then it was GPU fan issues (16" MacBook Pro). So I waited. Now its a deprecated platform or wait or PC.
- foldr 6y ago
  You're never going to buy any Apple product if you listen to people whining online. Every time Apple release anything, there is a contingent of people saying that it sucks, it's unusable, etc. etc. The 4th gen butterfly keyboards work fine. I have two (personal MacBook Air and work MacBook Pro) and have had no reliability issues whatsoever over the past year. I also love the feel of the keyboards. I don't have any personal experience with the fan noise issue, but I'd advise trying to get some first-hand data on it. Whatever laptop you switch to is also going to have its issues and imperfections. There just isn't a contingent of people loudly complaining about them all over the internet. So for example, here is a comment elsewhere in this thread about using Linux on a thinkpad: >If you feel that you don't need a 4k resolution screen, then I would recommend getting one with a regular HD or a Quad HD screen instead. Scaling is still not optimal on X11, and it seems to take at least some toll on the CPU as well (which will also result in your fans spinning up from time to time).
  - encom 6y ago
    >contingent of people saying that it sucks It's about the same size as the group of Apple apologists, neck deep in the reality distortion field, claiming that Apple is infallible and that you're holding it wrong.

jordanab 6y ago

I made the switch from a Macbook Pro to a Thinkpad X1 Extreme with Linux two years ago, and I'm still pretty happy about it. Some things to consider if you install Linux on a Thinkpad: - If you use your laptop on the go regularly, you have to know that both battery life and the trackpad are considerbly worse than on a Mac. I personally am not too bothered by this, as I mostly use my Thinkpad stationary. - If you feel that you don't need a 4k resolution screen, then I would recommend getting one with a regular HD or a Quad HD screen instead. Scaling is still not optimal on X11, and it seems to take at least some toll on the CPU as well (which will also result in your fans spinning up from time to time). - If you get a model with Nvidia discrete graphics, then I would recommend the PopOS distro. They have a version that comes with the Nvidia driver preinstalled, and it also preconfigures NVidia Optimus for you, making it easy to switch between integrated and discrete graphics whenever your needs change (eg. on-to-go vs stationary)