
Ask HN: Linux vs. Mac for Developer - ruairidhwm
So I&#x27;m planning on picking up a new laptop reasonably soon since I&#x27;m on a 2014 MBA which is showing its age.<p>I really like my Mac and I&#x27;m somewhat tied into the ecosystem as I have an iPhone as well. I enjoy the availability of software, and the good screen quality.<p>On the other hand, I&#x27;m concerned about the build quality issues which seem to be plaguing Apple&#x27;s products. I&#x27;m a full-time dev who works from home and don&#x27;t have a company provided machine so reliability is a big deal to me.<p>I&#x27;ve used linux in the past and primarily used Ubuntu before moving on to Elementary OS as a distro.<p>So what&#x27;s your opinion? Should I pick up a regular laptop and just install linux on it? Or take a chance on a macbook?<p>Budget is probably £2000 GBP - enough to buy a well-specced MBP 13&quot; or with a stretch, a regular 15&quot;.
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charlesdaniels
As someone who has tried various Linux distros, switched to Mac, switched back
to Linux, and finally settled on OpenBSD, I will weigh in.

I moved away from Mac due to issues with hardware quality, and also the poor
quality of recent macOS release.

That said, I would rate macOS highly on it's usability for office tasks --
managing emails and calendar events, coordinating across different messaging
platforms (iMessage is very useful), and so on. It's also best among all the
platforms, in my view, with respect to consistency of UI across different
applications.

If you're expecting tight integration and consistent UI design across a
variety of (GUI) applications, you will likely find Linux (and BSD, for that
matter) to be disappointing.

On the other hand, Linux is generally more pleasant to develop code on in my
experience. This somewhat depends on your language of choice, but lots of
tools are written for Linux first and ported to other platforms like macOS
later (case in point: Docker).

Linux hardware support is much better than it once was. With a careful choice
of laptop, you can get a fairly recent machine that will have working 3d
acceleration, wifi, and suspend/resume out of the box under modern Linux. In
many cases, I have found the hardware support of Linux to be better than that
of macOS (I had a lot of trouble with suspend and resume on my last Mac, as an
example).

I would suggest running Linux in some capacity (VM, dual boot, etc.) for a
while to see if you like it and if you can make it work for your use case
before dropping a lot of money on it.

I will say, having once owned (and now sold) a touchbar MBP, I would not
recommend any of the models in that family at any price point.

~~~
boltzmannbrain
"What's OpenBSD" you say?
[https://sivers.org/openbsd](https://sivers.org/openbsd)

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z0mbie42
New MBP user here, I won't recommend it!

The OS for development is really less powerful than Linux (like Docker
consuming a lot of resources/battery, brew feels far from secure...).

A friend of mine use a Dell xps13 woth ubuntu fo development and it's far more
enjoyable.

The only + for a MBP is the touchpad

~~~
stephenr
Well docker runs in a vm on macos (it requires a Linux kernel) so that’s
hardly surprising. It says more about the cool kid nature of peoples tech
choices than anything else.

Brew isn’t secure but that’s hardly the fault of “the OS” - it’s a third party
tool written by people who actively embrace the insecure design of the tool.

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dman
Dont get a macbook, apple is increasingly locking the OS down and bringing it
closer to iOS. For a comparable laptop get a thinkpad X1 extreme, lenovo x1,
dell xps 13 or dell precision 5530.

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dhruvkar
I've been on a 2012 MacBook Pro for ~7 years.

The build quality is fantastic. The keyboard is punchy. The display is pre-
retina, so not great, but I'm used to it. It's only noticeable when I see
someone else's newer laptop display. Battery life is only ~1.5-2 hours, but
I'm plugged in mostly.

First 5.5 years, I had macOS installed. However, with OS updates, starting
around Sierra (10.12), the machine became unusably slow.

Last 1.5 years, I've been running a mostly vanilla Lubuntu 16.04, upgraded to
18.04 recently. Most things worked out of the box, it was still an adjustment.
A few notes:

\- Drag-and-drop isn't as nice. So I use an external mouse now.

\- External displays have to be manually added after plugging in.

\- It was hard to do without Spotlight for a while. Linux alternatives were
too heavy for my machine.

\- Mostly I deploy Python to Ubuntu Server, so keeping a similar dev
environment is a breeze.

\- Have not gotten bluetooth to work yet, but haven't tried very hard either.

\- At the moment, I wouldn't go back to macOS or Windows. I'd keep making
small dives into the linux ecosystem to solve my problems.

If I needed to buy a new laptop and didn't need any heavy-lifting, I'd look
for one of these older, linux-tested, macbooks and install a lightweight linux
distro.

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mrdependable
I've used all 3 for development. Using macOS right now, but want to try
switching back to Windows when I have some free time. The reason I want to
switch is because I've been having a lot of trouble with my 2018 MBP. Aside
from keyboard issues, since updating to Mojave it no longer works well with my
external monitors which is really annoying. On top of that, the kernal_task
keeps slowing it down because it's too hot. I haven't been able to find the
source of that issue, but it affects productivity quite a bit.

Linux is really great when it works, but as a general use computer, it is no
match for Mac or Windows. If it's just for work, sure. If it's also your main
computer it can be a bit of a bummer as far as software support.

That leaves Windows. My Windows desktop has been really solid, it's cheaper,
more powerful, tons of software, and it has the Linux subsystem. I generally
prefer the tools for development on the Mac, and would prefer if I didn't feel
the need to switch. Not that you would want this feature either, but Windows
supports MST no problem. I don't know that my Mac ever will.

~~~
muffa
I got to admit that linux subsystem is actually pretty good. However using git
in the subsystem on a repo you have outside is slow, we are talking 10 seconds
to do a git log...

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honkycat
Personally like Linux a lot. It is worth it for the first-class docker
support.

James Turnbull had an article reviewing the XPS 13 last year. It is what I
would recommend: [https://www.kartar.net/2018/03/dell-xps-13-aka-2018-is-
the-y...](https://www.kartar.net/2018/03/dell-xps-13-aka-2018-is-the-year-of-
linux-on-the-desktop/)

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lukaszkups
Was a linux user for ~5years, moved to OSX for 2years, then switched back to
linux for some time. Now I work on Windows with WSL (bash on windows) - first
time ever initial setup can be a little (really little!) pain, but then it
just works like on linux, but with all Windows apps available as well.

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askafriend
I absolutely love my MacBook Pro and highly recommend it. It's the best
machine for mixing both development and personal use.

The hardware quality is also among the best.

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swah
I'm working on Linux every day but also wishing I could use Windows or a
Macbook since I hate everything about Linux as a desktop. But HN seems quite
anti-Apple...

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natalyarostova
Windows subsystem for linux is awesome. I have debian open in a terminal in
windows, and can use it to launch apps with a GUI as well, that intermingle
with my msft windows.

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kevinherron
I'm really happy with my 2018 MBP. The keyboard quality lottery is real
though, so there's a chance you get a bad one. Mine has been fine.

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stephenr
Some context would help; what sort of projects/languages/“stack” do you
develop for/using?

What is your current developer environment on macOS?

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tuananh
at the current state, i would suggest avoiding macbook because of the
keyboard.

things may change in macbook 2019 though

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darpa_escapee
The only reason I use macOS is battery life. I pine for Linux, it made
development a breeze.

