4 ms·

This is all true and I love it on a theoretical level. But I write code for a living and I really can't justify ever having my laptop out of commission because

This is all true and I love it on a theoretical level. But I write code for a living and I really can't justify ever having my laptop out of commission because of hardware/OS issues. "Hey, boss. I'm not going to have my work done today because I installed an $DISTRO update and now my laptop is having driver issues."

kristopolous 12y ago
there's certainly a fanboy hobbyist requirement in making a linux-you-install-yourself work for you. it takes a bit of passion and commitment. Just like the automobile enthusiast who always disassembles parts of their car and replaces components - although their cars probably break down more often these people are enraptured in the art of auto mechanics. What would be our expensive nightmare is to them, hours of enjoyable pastime.
beagle3 12y ago
Well, then, you can't afford to have less than two laptops then - because every single operating system, including Linux, Windows and OS/X, had botched upgrades.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  True, though I wouldn't personally buy two laptops just to avoid update hell. I'd rather just manually update once I'm sure it won't bork my system, and only when I can afford some potential downtime. That said, I can't imagine too many developers or IT professionals who only have one working computer at their disposal. I am typing this on my Windows 7/Slackware main workstation, with an old laptop running OpenBSD to my left and an old tower running NetBSD to my right. I can jump on either of those two and get back to work in a few minutes if this one goes down.
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  Sure. When I was a freelance consultant doing Windows stuff, I did have a backup laptop for just that reason - in case an upgrade borked things, or my hardware failed. OSX makes this particularly easy, though: you clone an OSX install with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to an external drive. (I have this scheduled to run nightly) You can then boot another Mac from that external drive. The result is that you don't have to maintain two separate OSX installs. You can borrow somebody else's Mac, boot from your external drive, and boom - your data and your entire working environment are ready to go. Of course you could also accomplish this with other operating systems. If your main work environment is a virtual machine, it's pretty trivial.

kristopolous 12y ago

there's certainly a fanboy hobbyist requirement in making a linux-you-install-yourself work for you. it takes a bit of passion and commitment. Just like the automobile enthusiast who always disassembles parts of their car and replaces components - although their cars probably break down more often these people are enraptured in the art of auto mechanics. What would be our expensive nightmare is to them, hours of enjoyable pastime.

beagle3 12y ago

Well, then, you can't afford to have less than two laptops then - because every single operating system, including Linux, Windows and OS/X, had botched upgrades.

morganvachon 12y ago
True, though I wouldn't personally buy two laptops just to avoid update hell. I'd rather just manually update once I'm sure it won't bork my system, and only when I can afford some potential downtime. That said, I can't imagine too many developers or IT professionals who only have one working computer at their disposal. I am typing this on my Windows 7/Slackware main workstation, with an old laptop running OpenBSD to my left and an old tower running NetBSD to my right. I can jump on either of those two and get back to work in a few minutes if this one goes down.
JohnBooty 12y ago
Sure. When I was a freelance consultant doing Windows stuff, I did have a backup laptop for just that reason - in case an upgrade borked things, or my hardware failed. OSX makes this particularly easy, though: you clone an OSX install with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to an external drive. (I have this scheduled to run nightly) You can then boot another Mac from that external drive. The result is that you don't have to maintain two separate OSX installs. You can borrow somebody else's Mac, boot from your external drive, and boom - your data and your entire working environment are ready to go. Of course you could also accomplish this with other operating systems. If your main work environment is a virtual machine, it's pretty trivial.