

Ask HN: Mac or PC for Hacking? - cyphersanctus

Assuming that you have the necessary budget for both, is a Mac or a PC preferable for coding, app creation, cryptocurrency mining, penetration testing, heavy duty multitasking?
======
Someone1234
I wouldn't do cryptocurrency mining or heavy duty multitasking on a Mac just
for cost reasons. If your budget was for example $2K you could buy an entire
farm of barebones PCs running Linux to do that heavy lifting for you rather
than a single high end i7 Mac (Macbook Pro, Mac Pro, etc).

Macs are fine for normal day to day stuff: coding, web-surfing, development,
etc. But per dollar they're terrible at raw throughput.

For pen testing you likely want a laptop, not a tower, since you'll be doing
things on-site a lot of the time. But a laptop (any laptop) is the opposite of
what you want for raw throughput due to heat dissertation issues.

So I'd likely recommend a really barebones tower with high spec (e.g.
unbranded/self-built, i7, high end GPUs, etc) and a laptop (e.g. Thinkpad T
series) for the user/pen testing stuff.

------
tptacek
The only less productive HN thread someone could Ask: for is "Emacs or vi?".

------
chrisBob
_money for both_ and _heavy multitasking_ says to me that you should get a Mac
(MBA or MBPr) you can work on, and a big workstation running Linux that you
remote into for your serious jobs.

I would always want more computer, and even the biggest i7, SSD, 64GB ram...
machine is going to take longer than you want to pull up HN if you are running
intensive tasks.

------
erkose
Preserve your freedom and install a PC with Linux.

~~~
Someone1234
Freedom in the metaphorical sense, not practical sense. On Linux you're free
to do anything metaphorically, but practically you have the least options
relative to Windows or OS X.

But, yes, if your time is worthless utilise Linux. If time is money then
something better.

~~~
prodigal_erik
cyphersanctus asked about hacking. They _want_ to solve their own problems
through cleverness, not throw money to make problems sort of go away. Time
spent in a hobby isn't wasted, and hackers should always favor open tools over
locked-down appliances.

~~~
squeaky-clean
They want to solve _fun_ problems through cleverness. Not problems like
unsupported wifi drivers.

