4 ms·

I've recently switched from a MBP to a System76 laptop, after about 5 years of running MacOS X, and I couldn't be much happier. The new MBPs are extremely hars

I've recently switched from a MBP to a System76 laptop, after about 5 years of running MacOS X, and I couldn't be much happier. The new MBPs are extremely harsh to type on between the sharp edge and the keyboard. I ultimately had to buy a Kinesis just to use it because the MBP destroyed my fingers. Most people don't have that problem, but it's nice to be able to actually use my laptop as a portable device again. I also really don't like the direction Apple is taking MacOS. Lion chugs resources and does odd things like disable my second monitor when apps go into fullscreen mode. I don't really care much for the direction of the Mac app store, too. LinuxMint has been great. It's the first time I've really run a Linux desktop since about 2003. What I miss is the polished apps. E.g., Adium is much better than Pidgin and Postbox or Sparrow are much better than Thunderbird. But, overall, I've been pleasantly surprised. Plus, I have 16 GB RAM now (could've gone up to 32 GB) and the OS consumes a lot less of RAM in general.

batista 15y ago
>I also really don't like the direction Apple is taking MacOS. Lion chugs resources and does odd things like disable my second monitor when apps go into fullscreen mode. So, you come to the bizarro conclusion that Apple's direction includes Lion "chugging resources" and having a fullscreen mode bug? Truth is, OS X always had bugs, as did every OS release ever, be it Linux/Gnome, to Windows, to whatever... Some get squashed, some new get introduced. Direction has nothing to do with this. FTIW, I don't see Lion "chugging resources". Running it on a 2GB, 2007 MBP at the moment. What exactly chugs resources? You can check on Activity Monitor and report to us (or even better, to Apple). >I don't really care much for the direction of the Mac app store, too. You mean OS X finally having a software repository, like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc had all along?
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard. I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does. For most non-devs, it's probably fine. I suppose that's why the MacBook Airs only ship with 4 GB RAM max. They were never really meant to be developer machines and that's becoming more apparent. Re: multi-monitor & fullscreen -- based on the animation, it looks pretty deliberate. If it's a bug, I'd never know because of how Apple treats bugs. It hasn't been addressed at all in any of the follow-on updates. But, I can't wait around until the next OS on the off-chance it is a bug they fix. Re: the Mac app store it's almost nothing like any of the software repositories you've listed. But, you already knew that and just wanted to pick a ridiculous argument. If you're happy with Lion, great. It was a question about what people are using to develop with and I shared my opinion.
  - batista 14y ago
    >No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. How about just one then? I don't see a iOS-ification, I just see a cross-pollination of concepts. Haven't met many people who don't like full-screen apps for example, especially for certain tasks that require concentration, like writing, drawing, etc, even programming. Though, could a full-screen Emacs still be considered a full-screen "app" (full-screen OS?). I also like how I finally have one bloody view for both spaces AND "expose" that is convenient. >Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard. It seems like something that it's either obvious (say, a 20% slowdown), or something marginal that needs lotsa testing to find out. I haven't experienced anything of the former. As for the latter, do we have any numbers? At least, some benchmark run on the exact same machine, on a newly installed Snow Leopard AND Lion. This guys ran one, and it showed the exact same performance for both Snow Leopard and Lion, with marginal variation in different areas to one or the other. The more impressive gains were on the Lion side: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4485/back-to-the-mac-os-x-107-lion-review/23 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4485/back-to-the-mac-os-x-107-... Same results as these guys: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20081987-1/snow-leopard-vs-lion-performance-head-to-head/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20081987-1/snow-leopard-... So, no, "Lion chugs resources" sounds like a subjective unsubstantiated claim to me, as does every similar statements, whatever the OS or app, if it's not accompanied with numbers. >I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does. This makes it sound like the "chugging of resources" is, if not the direction, as you say, an inherent attribute of the direction (i.e like with that direction it would be inevitable NOT to chug resources). The numbers show that this is in fact not the case at all -- it does NOT chug resouces. But even if it was, I wouldn't rush to call it an inherent attribute of the direction, but merely an accidental one, some bug or sloppy coding that introduced performance regressions and that can be fixed, whatever the direction.
    - nirvdrum 14y ago
      I started a lengthy reply before realizing you're just going to continue to pick sentence by sentence, ignore the spirit of the discussion, and then even bizarrely ignore the same points you previously attacked. I'm confused as to what you're trying to win though. The benchmarks you provide are useless because they're synthentic. No one runs one task at a time (well, unless you use the new fullscreen mode :-P). None of the benchmarks have anything to with the task of programming, which is what the original topic was about. I'd imagine if you stay under the upper bound on load, the performance is roughly on par. But, I can make an 8 GB MBP start swapping like crazy in about 5 minutes. I even added an SSD just to deal with slow swapping. Performing the exact same tasks, I didn't run into that with Snow Leopard. I probably need 16 GB RAM with Lion, but dropping another $1,500 to make that happen was a bit much. We clearly have different work styles. It's really okay if we have differing world views. I prefer to work with two maximized apps, one on each display. It works best for me. As more apps adopt the new form of full screen, which auto-kills the other display, my life gets harder though. It's really not fullscreen apps, it's single-focus apps. Great. It still doesn't work for me. If you haven't seen anyone complain about Lion, I really can't help you there. I honestly haven't seen anyone use Lion and not complain about it (well, I guess with you now being the notable exception). A good friend of mine just tweeted a few days ago that it took 15 min. to reboot Lion. I doubt he benchmarked it against Snow Leopard, but I doubt he was lyin' either (pun fully intended). At the end of the day, Apple is all about the customer experience, or so I've been told. The hardware doesn't work for me. Prolonged typing on the chicklet keyboards introduced with the unibody MBPs has destroyed my hands. The OS doesn't work for me. You don't have to agree with me. Maybe you're right and it's not the direction that's a problem but the current manifestation. It really doesn't matter because I need to get work done today and Lion isn't the best tool for the job. I suspect Mountain Lion is going to exacerbate the problem. Maybe it won't, but you don't know either. The nice part for me is I no longer have to care. I'm much happier with my switch.
pm90 15y ago
I've always wanted to buy a system76 laptop; can you please elaborate on the model that you bought? The only things I was unsure of: 1) Is it very heavy (as in weight) compared to MBP? 2) Display quality? 3) Trackpad quality? (I don't mean to turn this into a review, but just wanted a developers experienced opinion on the issues that nagged me most)
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  I bought the 15" Serval Pro (sp7). It weighs about the same as my 17" MBP did. So, same weight, but smaller screen. Naturally it's thicker. I went with the 15" because at the time of purchase that was the only one with a matte display option. I had the hi-res matte 17" MBP. No doubt about it, that screen was nicer. But, I really don't have any complaints about my new 15" screen. I've been using it actively for about 2 months now and have gotten used to it. The other two areas the MBP clearly win out are battery life and power supply. I couldn't really use my MBP without a Kinesis, so long battery didn't mean much. But the System76 gets about 2.5 hours like most other brands. The power supply is a beast though and adds another 4 lbs or so when traveling. It also lacks the awesome mag-safe connector. Bonuses: comfortable keyboard, nice rubber finish, no sharp edges, integrated keypad, plenty of ports and no need for dongles, replaceable battery, easy hardware upgrades, up to 32 GB RAM (I went with 16 GB), and well-supported hardware. The trackpad is nice. It took some getting used to since I had used a clickpad for so long. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I dual-boot Win 7 for dev work and set it up such that I can access that partition as a raw disk in VMWare. While it works pretty well out of the box, it's a Linux laptop so I would expect to do some tinkering. And while it's a pretty attractive system, it has nowhere near the sex appeal of a MBP or MBA. That matters little to me. I treat it as a portable workstation and really just want to get work done. But, just be aware of what you're buying.
- japhyr 15y ago
  I used a sys76 pangolin for two years and loved it. The only complaint I ever had was the battery life.

batista 15y ago

>I also really don't like the direction Apple is taking MacOS. Lion chugs resources and does odd things like disable my second monitor when apps go into fullscreen mode. So, you come to the bizarro conclusion that Apple's direction includes Lion "chugging resources" and having a fullscreen mode bug? Truth is, OS X always had bugs, as did every OS release ever, be it Linux/Gnome, to Windows, to whatever... Some get squashed, some new get introduced. Direction has nothing to do with this. FTIW, I don't see Lion "chugging resources". Running it on a 2GB, 2007 MBP at the moment. What exactly chugs resources? You can check on Activity Monitor and report to us (or even better, to Apple). >I don't really care much for the direction of the Mac app store, too. You mean OS X finally having a software repository, like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc had all along?

nirvdrum 15y ago
No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard. I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does. For most non-devs, it's probably fine. I suppose that's why the MacBook Airs only ship with 4 GB RAM max. They were never really meant to be developer machines and that's becoming more apparent. Re: multi-monitor & fullscreen -- based on the animation, it looks pretty deliberate. If it's a bug, I'd never know because of how Apple treats bugs. It hasn't been addressed at all in any of the follow-on updates. But, I can't wait around until the next OS on the off-chance it is a bug they fix. Re: the Mac app store it's almost nothing like any of the software repositories you've listed. But, you already knew that and just wanted to pick a ridiculous argument. If you're happy with Lion, great. It was a question about what people are using to develop with and I shared my opinion.
- batista 14y ago
  >No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. How about just one then? I don't see a iOS-ification, I just see a cross-pollination of concepts. Haven't met many people who don't like full-screen apps for example, especially for certain tasks that require concentration, like writing, drawing, etc, even programming. Though, could a full-screen Emacs still be considered a full-screen "app" (full-screen OS?). I also like how I finally have one bloody view for both spaces AND "expose" that is convenient. >Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard. It seems like something that it's either obvious (say, a 20% slowdown), or something marginal that needs lotsa testing to find out. I haven't experienced anything of the former. As for the latter, do we have any numbers? At least, some benchmark run on the exact same machine, on a newly installed Snow Leopard AND Lion. This guys ran one, and it showed the exact same performance for both Snow Leopard and Lion, with marginal variation in different areas to one or the other. The more impressive gains were on the Lion side: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4485/back-to-the-mac-os-x-107-lion-review/23 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4485/back-to-the-mac-os-x-107-... Same results as these guys: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20081987-1/snow-leopard-vs-lion-performance-head-to-head/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20081987-1/snow-leopard-... So, no, "Lion chugs resources" sounds like a subjective unsubstantiated claim to me, as does every similar statements, whatever the OS or app, if it's not accompanied with numbers. >I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does. This makes it sound like the "chugging of resources" is, if not the direction, as you say, an inherent attribute of the direction (i.e like with that direction it would be inevitable NOT to chug resources). The numbers show that this is in fact not the case at all -- it does NOT chug resouces. But even if it was, I wouldn't rush to call it an inherent attribute of the direction, but merely an accidental one, some bug or sloppy coding that introduced performance regressions and that can be fixed, whatever the direction.
  - nirvdrum 14y ago
    I started a lengthy reply before realizing you're just going to continue to pick sentence by sentence, ignore the spirit of the discussion, and then even bizarrely ignore the same points you previously attacked. I'm confused as to what you're trying to win though. The benchmarks you provide are useless because they're synthentic. No one runs one task at a time (well, unless you use the new fullscreen mode :-P). None of the benchmarks have anything to with the task of programming, which is what the original topic was about. I'd imagine if you stay under the upper bound on load, the performance is roughly on par. But, I can make an 8 GB MBP start swapping like crazy in about 5 minutes. I even added an SSD just to deal with slow swapping. Performing the exact same tasks, I didn't run into that with Snow Leopard. I probably need 16 GB RAM with Lion, but dropping another $1,500 to make that happen was a bit much. We clearly have different work styles. It's really okay if we have differing world views. I prefer to work with two maximized apps, one on each display. It works best for me. As more apps adopt the new form of full screen, which auto-kills the other display, my life gets harder though. It's really not fullscreen apps, it's single-focus apps. Great. It still doesn't work for me. If you haven't seen anyone complain about Lion, I really can't help you there. I honestly haven't seen anyone use Lion and not complain about it (well, I guess with you now being the notable exception). A good friend of mine just tweeted a few days ago that it took 15 min. to reboot Lion. I doubt he benchmarked it against Snow Leopard, but I doubt he was lyin' either (pun fully intended). At the end of the day, Apple is all about the customer experience, or so I've been told. The hardware doesn't work for me. Prolonged typing on the chicklet keyboards introduced with the unibody MBPs has destroyed my hands. The OS doesn't work for me. You don't have to agree with me. Maybe you're right and it's not the direction that's a problem but the current manifestation. It really doesn't matter because I need to get work done today and Lion isn't the best tool for the job. I suspect Mountain Lion is going to exacerbate the problem. Maybe it won't, but you don't know either. The nice part for me is I no longer have to care. I'm much happier with my switch.

pm90 15y ago

I've always wanted to buy a system76 laptop; can you please elaborate on the model that you bought? The only things I was unsure of: 1) Is it very heavy (as in weight) compared to MBP? 2) Display quality? 3) Trackpad quality? (I don't mean to turn this into a review, but just wanted a developers experienced opinion on the issues that nagged me most)

nirvdrum 15y ago
I bought the 15" Serval Pro (sp7). It weighs about the same as my 17" MBP did. So, same weight, but smaller screen. Naturally it's thicker. I went with the 15" because at the time of purchase that was the only one with a matte display option. I had the hi-res matte 17" MBP. No doubt about it, that screen was nicer. But, I really don't have any complaints about my new 15" screen. I've been using it actively for about 2 months now and have gotten used to it. The other two areas the MBP clearly win out are battery life and power supply. I couldn't really use my MBP without a Kinesis, so long battery didn't mean much. But the System76 gets about 2.5 hours like most other brands. The power supply is a beast though and adds another 4 lbs or so when traveling. It also lacks the awesome mag-safe connector. Bonuses: comfortable keyboard, nice rubber finish, no sharp edges, integrated keypad, plenty of ports and no need for dongles, replaceable battery, easy hardware upgrades, up to 32 GB RAM (I went with 16 GB), and well-supported hardware. The trackpad is nice. It took some getting used to since I had used a clickpad for so long. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I dual-boot Win 7 for dev work and set it up such that I can access that partition as a raw disk in VMWare. While it works pretty well out of the box, it's a Linux laptop so I would expect to do some tinkering. And while it's a pretty attractive system, it has nowhere near the sex appeal of a MBP or MBA. That matters little to me. I treat it as a portable workstation and really just want to get work done. But, just be aware of what you're buying.
japhyr 15y ago
I used a sys76 pangolin for two years and loved it. The only complaint I ever had was the battery life.