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I switched from a Linux laptop to a Macbook Pro for after about 5 years on Linux. The initial reason was that my last employer required us to use Macbooks. I n

I switched from a Linux laptop to a Macbook Pro for after about 5 years on Linux. The initial reason was that my last employer required us to use Macbooks. I now have the option to use whatever computer I'd like and (for now at least) I'm still sticking with the Macbook. The main things that keep me on it are: - Excellent hardware. The build quality is higher than any non-Apple laptop I've tried and the display is really good. - Performance and battery usage with the Apple silicon chip is great. - iCloud sync. I use an iPhone and frequently make use of iMessage, photos, and clipboard syncing between devices. I know that you can replicate a lot of that with Android and Linux, but at this point I'm pretty deep in Apple's ecosystem and am unlikely to switch away anytime soon. The biggest thing I miss is having a good tiling window manager experience. I have a desktop running Sway[0] and really love it. I've tried a handful of tiling window managers for mac and none of them have felt really good to use. They all feel like I'm fighting the OS more than working with it. If there were a lightweight laptop with good linux compatibility, a high-dpi, high refresh rate display, and competitive battery life, I'd be very tempted to switch back to linux just to have a good window manager again. I'm hoping that Asahi on the MBP can give me that, but it seems like it's not quite ready for daily driving yet. [0] https://swaywm.org/ https://swaywm.org/

brucethemoose2 4y ago
Terrible windows laptops are just terrible laptops, but seeing my Asus G14 side by side next to a macbook pro doesn't really leave me wanting for anything. Its about the same size. The screen, keyboard, trackpad... all comparable. It has more ports. The cooling system in the G14 blows the mac away, hence it can run passively and sip battery just piddling around the desktop. The mac has 3 big advantages as far as I can tell: - Power efficiency under heavy GPU/AI loads. If you even sniff the dGPU in a PC, you can kiss your battery goodby. - A large RAM pool for GPU/AI stuff. - No fussing around with different power settings/fan profiles for different situations. As for the PC laptop - It has a huge gaming advantage -"native nvidia" is often easier for ML stuff. Software differences are a whole other can of worms.
- jamesbvaughan 4y ago
  The G14 looks pretty good - I hadn't checked it out before. It's slightly thicker and heavier than the MPB and I'd really like to go lighter rather than heavier if I were to switch. If gaming were a priority for me though, something like this seems like it would be the way to go.
  - brucethemoose2 4y ago
    Gaming is not even a priority for me, but I just like the ability to do ML stuff and the overkill cooling, not to speak of the price.
tsuujin 4y ago
I recently switched to using yabai for tiling windows on Mac. It is easily the best of the tools I have tried. Not without faults, and some things like dialog popups get treated weird, but it has overall made me happy.
- jamesbvaughan 4y ago
  Yeah, yabai is the one I've had the most success with and I'm a fan of it! I actually still use it for faster desktop/workspace switching. I've ended up finding that for me personally though, it feels slightly better to give in to the way macOS wants me to do window management, working with the designers' intent, than it does to work against it with yabai.
  - rcarmo 4y ago
    Yabai required disabling System Integrity Protection at some point, which has the potential to break your UX (including the ability to login in at all) in various ways and may be flushed out by both standard and unattended upgrades… so I wouldn’t recommend it.
    - tsuujin 4y ago
      You only need to disable SIP for scripts, which are not mandatory. I’m using yabai with SIP enabled.
rcarmo 4y ago
I’ve tried Amethyst and Phoenix (the former is completely scriptable), and they’re workable. Here’s my list: https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers You will never have the kind of control you have in Sway, but you can get really close.

brucethemoose2 4y ago

Terrible windows laptops are just terrible laptops, but seeing my Asus G14 side by side next to a macbook pro doesn't really leave me wanting for anything. Its about the same size. The screen, keyboard, trackpad... all comparable. It has more ports. The cooling system in the G14 blows the mac away, hence it can run passively and sip battery just piddling around the desktop. The mac has 3 big advantages as far as I can tell: - Power efficiency under heavy GPU/AI loads. If you even sniff the dGPU in a PC, you can kiss your battery goodby. - A large RAM pool for GPU/AI stuff. - No fussing around with different power settings/fan profiles for different situations. As for the PC laptop - It has a huge gaming advantage -"native nvidia" is often easier for ML stuff. Software differences are a whole other can of worms.

jamesbvaughan 4y ago
The G14 looks pretty good - I hadn't checked it out before. It's slightly thicker and heavier than the MPB and I'd really like to go lighter rather than heavier if I were to switch. If gaming were a priority for me though, something like this seems like it would be the way to go.
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  Gaming is not even a priority for me, but I just like the ability to do ML stuff and the overkill cooling, not to speak of the price.

tsuujin 4y ago

I recently switched to using yabai for tiling windows on Mac. It is easily the best of the tools I have tried. Not without faults, and some things like dialog popups get treated weird, but it has overall made me happy.

jamesbvaughan 4y ago
Yeah, yabai is the one I've had the most success with and I'm a fan of it! I actually still use it for faster desktop/workspace switching. I've ended up finding that for me personally though, it feels slightly better to give in to the way macOS wants me to do window management, working with the designers' intent, than it does to work against it with yabai.
- rcarmo 4y ago
  Yabai required disabling System Integrity Protection at some point, which has the potential to break your UX (including the ability to login in at all) in various ways and may be flushed out by both standard and unattended upgrades… so I wouldn’t recommend it.
  - tsuujin 4y ago
    You only need to disable SIP for scripts, which are not mandatory. I’m using yabai with SIP enabled.

rcarmo 4y ago

I’ve tried Amethyst and Phoenix (the former is completely scriptable), and they’re workable. Here’s my list: https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers You will never have the kind of control you have in Sway, but you can get really close.