

Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality? - akoder

Does the idea of a computer that bundles a linux distro into one amazing piece of tech like d mac, at a lesser cost, appeal to you?
======
sbuk
It's got nothing to do with cost, which is IMHO a complete canard. Spec for
spec, MacBooks are actually quite competitive in the market in which they
compete[0]. I'd _love_ to see a linux based laptop that is as well integrated
and as well made as a Mac. It'd be great if it wasn't fugly too. If it's
cheaper, that's a bonus, but in all honesty, I've yet to find a brand new
laptop that costs less that £700 that isn't a piece of junk. Below that price,
all sorts of noticeable compromises are made; from screen resolution to
overall build quality.

[0]I do a _lot_ of procurement in my current job and spec for spec, Macbook
Pros actually sit in the middle of the market place based on cost and I argue
that they are placed higher in terms of build quality than most other brands
too. Extensibility is where they fall down massively, but then after 3 year,
all our machines are retired anyway, by which time they are financially
written off. For the record, I buy HP zBooks which are more expensive than
Macs and in my experience not as well integrated with Windows _or_ Linux.

~~~
zanny
I keep seeing nice Chromebooks with IPS displays and usually unibody plastic
build construction.

Sub the plastic for aluminum and it shouldn't add more than $100 to the ticket
price. Make the keyboard good for another $50. That is only like $500 now, so
we want some actual storage in this device, so throw in a 512GB SSD and call
it a day at $700 with a Haswell dual core.

~~~
sbuk
>> Sub the plastic for aluminum and it shouldn't add more than $100 to the
ticket price.

You'll be surprised! I'd suggest closer to $200.

>> Make the keyboard good for another $50

Agreed.

>> ...throw in a 512GB SSD and call it a day at $700 with a Haswell dual core.

Can't argue with the storage, but the CPU is still not an i5/7 and the
graphics card isn't Intel Iris/nVidia class. Add those in and we're beginning
to hit Macbook price territory. Throw in a decent trackpad and a hi-res
screen, and were there. Actually, it'd give us one of these;
[https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_...](https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_pixel_wifi)
which cost £200 more than a MacBook Air and £50 more than the base model
MacBook Pro Retina. Alright, the Pixel has a better screen with touch, but the
Air has better graphics and more storage and the Pro blows the both out of the
water in performance terms, so on balance I'd argue that the MacBook Pro is
better value than both the Air and the Pixel.

~~~
pbz
$200 just for an aluminum case? The price of aluminum is under $1 per pound.
Where do you get that amount?

~~~
sbuk
_Raw_ Aluminium needs to be processed. Even as ingots, there is a considerable
amount of manufacturing required to form and make it into a sturdy enough
case. As illustrated by the pricer point of the Pixel, my guesstimate seems
closer than the original $100 - if anything I'm also a bit too low...

~~~
pbz
$200 is ridiculously high, even $100 is too much. $200 is the estimated bill
of materials for the entire iPhone6 (which uses aluminum). I wasn't able to
find an estimate for the MBP case, but Ford's cost of changing F-150 to
aluminum (for an entire truck!!) is $500:

[http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/11/fords-switch-to-
aluminu...](http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/11/fords-switch-to-
aluminum-f-150-increases-costs-500-a-truck.html)

~~~
sbuk
You are comparing pressed sheet aluminium to CNC milled aluminium. It really
is a very, _very_ different process. For one, the tooling is much cheaper.
There is less waste. The quality of the raw materials if different. The finish
is different. The volume is different. Most importantly, the manufacturing
process is very different. A product (a car, a boat, a phone, a computer, even
a building) is considerably more than the sum of it's BOM. It's an incredibly
facile way to evaluate the cost of something.

~~~
pbz
The cost of the material is negligible, we're talking less than $5. You can
buy a pretty decent CPU for $200. Are you telling me that the overhead of
cutting a piece of aluminum (the waste can easily be reused) is about the same
as building a CPU?!!

~~~
sbuk
Yes. I'm sorry, what is you manufacturing background? It's relevant as you
seem to be under the misapprehension that material cost is the only
consideration here.

------
eveningcoffee
I am already using the Linux on laptop better than Mac. It is called Thinkpad
(an older model).

Now the problem is that Lenovo is trying to be more like Apple and this does
not go well with them. You can ask how much people are pleased with the new
single button touchpads or how they like 16:9 screens instead of 16:10 screens
or how they like the lack of Delete button.

So yes, I would buy a laptop (I would not buy a branded PC for obvious
reasons) that has very good ergonomics and is made from quality components.
This would be not a Mac'1, and unfortunately, if nothing changes in Lenovo, it
would be also not a Thinkpad.

Based on my gut feeling based on the surfing around, I would bet that I am not
alone. Therefore I could say that there may be a market opportunity.

'1 due eye strain and need to move hands away from keyboard.

~~~
zzzeek
> Now the problem is that Lenovo is trying to be more like Apple and this does
> not go well with them. You can ask how much people are pleased with the new
> single button touchpads or how they like 16:9 screens instead of 16:10
> screens or how they like the lack of Delete button.

I have one of those newer lenovos, and if the trackpad is their attempt to "be
more like" Apple, they really have a very long way to go in terms of copying
functionality. For one thing, Apple correctly understands that we humans have
our thumbs (which, lenovo, is the part that most comfortably moves
_independently_ of the rest of our hand) on the _inside_ of our hands, so
perhaps that's why the buttons are supposed to be on the _bottom_ and not the
top, where pretty much any scroll + click activity requires two hands with the
lenovo. It's a UX disaster.

~~~
DanBC
Buttons at the top of the trackpad were normally used with the trackpoint.
They're underneath that.

It's kind of weird to see developers not loving the trackpoint and those three
buttons because it's exactly where you want them and really freaking useful
when yu get used to it.

The only other pointing device that I like was the Microsoft IntelliMouse
(which they don't appear to make anymore).

~~~
zzzeek
yeah. but now, they have two pointing devices. the trackpoint, and the
trackpad. the buttons are in the middle. I'm a trackpad guy so...why even
bother having a trackpad if the buttons are designed for the trackpoint? the
two alternate interfaces in one package is kind of a fail to start with, they
should pick one or the other and stick with it.

------
Htsthbjig
Of course but DO NOT BELIEVE that you can make something of better quality
than a hundred billion dollar company can do.

Apple has lots of legacy code, you know, when you see instant vector graphics
in apple maps, Apple is using decades of software done by dozens of genius
programmers over time when efficiency mattered(for example for drawing fonts
on the screen). This code, then, became accelerated.

Apple bought a hardware semiconductor company that designs specific hardware
for them that makes for example instant photos or slow motion video, or
hardware acceleration of playback(which makes battery last way longer than
anyone else).

Apple sells millions of devices and this means they have access to a supply
chain and prices you can't get. period.

If you want to compete with Apple, do what Apple will never do:

\- Add the option to replace the battery and RAM. \- The option to use it on
sunlight, like Pixel Qi. \- Make the hardware open source. \- Make the case
also open so people can 3d print it or mechanize or whatever, like a Harley
Davidson. \- Make it rugged so people can use it in the beach.

You have to find your niche in what the big boys will never care to compete or
just scares them.

Forget about lesser cost, your prices need to be way higher than Apple because
at first you will be selling thousands st most, not millions.

I have a company. I don't care if I have to spend double or triple what an air
cost if it solves a problem no body else solves(and it makes me money). I
spend 50.000 or 60.000 dollars in some machines(because they give me lots of
money back).

~~~
tarminian
"Apple sells millions of devices and this means they have access to a supply
chain and prices you can't get. period."

How does that explain the higher cost of Apple products?

~~~
rifung
I don't agree with the premise that Apple products have a higher cost, at
least here in the US. As far as I can tell, if you want something similar to a
Mac you'd have to pay just as much if not more, and it's honestly hard to find
something that can compare.

I think if you only look at the "computing relevant" specifications it might
be possible, but what I think is much more difficult to find is other products
that offer the same quality for the other things. For example, I haven't been
able to find another laptop that can offer the combination of good battery
life, keyboard, screen quality (not necessarily resolution), and trackpad.
They are also quite nice looking although that's subjective obviously.

If you know of another laptop that has all these things please do recommend it
as I am looking to upgrade soon! Preferably Linux compatible =]

------
overgard
So I'll say this as a mac user for the last 5 years: I'm mostly buying the
hardware, not the software. I'm actually not really that fond of OS-X. I feel
like in theory I _should_ like it (a nice unix with great graphics?), but it
finds a lot of subtle ways to annoy the hell out of me. Apple is great at
beautiful UI's, but I think they kind of suck at UX.

The only reason I haven't switched to linux is I find most of their UI's are
more annoying. (Gnome 2 was solid, but Gnome 3 and unity are a mess, and KDE
feels like it's in a perpetual state of not-quite-done although if I were to
use any of them, that would probably be my choice)

I guess I'd also say though, that linux as a selling point would mean nothing
to me (good or bad). Like I wouldn't care that it's a linux computer at all,
I'd either be excited or not because it's a well put together machine.

~~~
eveningcoffee
Interestingly I find the Ubuntu Unity UI the best that is there for wide
screen laptops as it does not waste the vertical screen estate with
unnecessary UI elements - when windows are maximized then menu, title and the
information bar are integrated into one area.

~~~
overgard
It has its merits. I think it does use space well. It would be silly if I said
it was bad, because it works for some people, obviously.

My main criticism was that it relied a lot on search (which I basically never
want to use), and it had an annoying habit of hiding things. I really hate it
when UI's get super clever and try to guess what's useful to me, I'd rather
things just stay in one place and I'll remember where it is. Whenever UI's try
to "adapt" to users, I just find it makes them unpredictable, and efficiency
is more about predictability than anything else.

------
malexw
Absolutely, yes.

I like the idea of System76, but I find the quality of the chassis they use to
be abysmal. I considered installing Linux on Mac hardware, but the hoops you
need to jump through to install it and the challenges with drivers on recent
hardware were a turn-off.

That left me with my year-old Lenovo T440p, which I currently run Ubuntu on.
It's not as nice as Macbook hardware, though. I don't care for the trackpad or
the keyboard layout (though the action is great), and the backlight bleed on
the screen is really disappointing. But it met my needs of a 14" laptop with a
4-core i7, 1080p display, and discrete graphics chip, and I'm completely
satisfied with the performance. I'd love to see another high-end manufacturer
out there.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I like the Yoga 14 for a decently priced 14 inch laptop. Though it doesn't
come with an SSD, which is an effing joke.

~~~
krick
Well, you can change your storage yourself, not a big problem, IMHO. Is screen
good though?

------
DanBC
No.

MacBook Pro 2009:

Aluminium Unibody deforms if dropped. Glass trackpad can shatter. Stupid
fucking magsafe connector is too weak - a connector cable that fails even
though it's only held on with magnets is severely sub-optimal. Only two USB
connectors. chicet keyboard. Sharp edges. No trackpad buttons or trackpoint.
Gloss screen.

Give me:-

* A great keyboard. See Apple Powerbook for an example great keyboard. (Obviously Thinkpads had great keyboards too).

* high impact ABS. This doesn't look as nice as aluminum. It probably doesn't feel as nice. But it survives knocks and falls better. My Asus EEE PC 701 was robust as hell, so whatever that was made out of.

* don't solder the drives to the board. Or have a very good quality SSD soldered to the board with one (better 2) drivebays.

* 4:3 monitor!!!

* take three popular Linux distributions (say Ubuntu; Arch and Fedora) and instLl them on your computer. Test them rigorously. Write clear detailed guides and how-tos and faqs on your site to cover the tweaking needed. Contribute any code back upstream. Make sure the following are working out of the box:-

\- wifi

-acpi or similar (especially sleep on lid close; and make sure the system correctly wakes after)

-power management

* give it a huge battery and make sure the OS is set to give at least 8 hours use.

* allow a stupid large amount of ram to be installed. Offer very fast very good very large prefitted tested ram as a purchase option.

By mentioning Mac you've introduced a bunch of weird things that fistract from
the conversation you actually want. Better would be "would you like a computer
like Thinkpads used to be?" Or "imagine the best bits of all the laptops
you've ever used, all together in one great machine, with Linux".

~~~
Terretta
Sounds like less a laptop, more a luggable. Definitely not the thing Apple's
going for. Used to like Panasonic Toughbook for the Humvee of laptops.

~~~
DanBC
I've given the wrong impression if you think "toughbook" or "luggable".

There is the MacBook Air (an engineering marvel) and the MacBook Pro (a more
sensible size). I want something like the MacbookPro but not aluminium (which
is heavy and which bends and stays bent) but plastic (which is a bit lighter
and absorbs impact better).

------
hysan
Yes, if it's a laptop (DIY will always be better for PCs). But until I see it,
I won't believe that you or anyone can pull it off at a price that's
competitive (or equal) to a Macbook Pro/Air.

Apple's laptop line is actually quite competitive. The keyboard (layout),
trackpad (quality/design), integration of hardware and software (battery life
+ feel), and overall build quality are what sets Apple apart from the
competition. I have yet to buy an Apple product, but I also haven't replaced
my laptop in over 3 years. Every time I think of doing so, I go through the
same exercise:

1\. Eliminate laptops with idiotic layouts (I'm one of those people that type
with the right shift key). This first step already cuts out the majority of
low cost laptops.

2\. Filter by battery life. Suddenly Apple pricing isn't looking that bad.

3\. Filter by specs - screen, etc. Now you are left with laptops that are all
in the same (or higher!) price range as Apple.

And this is all before taking into account other factors like Linux
compatibility. By time I get the list down to models that are competitive with
Apple, the price is almost always equal or higher. And usually, none work 100%
perfectly with Linux. So I end up buying nothing.

If you could pull off such a piece of hardware, where the hardware is designed
to fit the distro's look and feel (a very underrated pro for Apple products in
my opinion), at a competitive price, I'd be first in line to buy one.

------
tehwalrus
I would love one. Currently in between real laptops (long story, currently
using a £200 15" craptop with debian XFCE) and I am genuinely puzzled what to
do next.

Macbook air (my last real laptop, 11") was awesome, but you have to upgrade
the storage at the start (I learned the hard way). There's no option for a
smallish SSD + big spinning data drive (which, in practise, turns out to be
_extremely_ useful.) I could break the bank and order the 500GB SSD, but then
I get worried about longevity. Additionally, I'd have to live with Yosemite
for the time being, which it seems is the Lion of this generation of OSs (much
much slower than its predecessor).

So I started looking at ThinkPads as the traditional Linux laptops. I met a
guy in a coffee shop, literally yesterday, who was still running a 32-bit X200
and said he wouldn't change it for the world. Looking at the latest of that
line (X240) I am tempted (especially by the NGFF SSD slot, and the much higher
resolution) until I read the reviews everyone is posting about how awful the
mac-style trackpad is. I love the apple touchpads, I actually own the
bluetooth external one, but the USP of them is clearly their drivers. It
sounds like the X240's trackpad is going to be even worse than my craptops,
which at least has buttons!

I've just had a look at the System76 brand, but their smallest device is a
14"-er! So no dice there. It would have two full HDD slots though, which would
allow for some serious storage customisation...

So what to do? At the moment I'm tempted by the X240, and being prepared to
carry around a USB mouse in case it is impossible to hack that trackpad.

~~~
LaSombra
I'm on the same boat as you. At my workplace ThinkPads are standard and lots
of people install Linux. It seems there is some hacks to make the (2|4|5)40
trackpads work. IIRC it is a combination of kernel 3.17 and some X
configuration fiddling. So not all hope is lost.

~~~
tehwalrus
I've already found about 4 tutorials - and the X240 is reduced in the new year
sales! This makes them both cheaper and better than the equivalent macbook
airs (with hybrid over straight SSD, higher res, etc) so it looks like that's
the only choice...

------
drivingmenuts
No.

Linux makes for a good server setup, but the desktop side is lacking in high-
quality applications that are considered standard on other platforms. Linux
simply has too many cooks to ever achieve the mostly homogenous experience of
Windows or Mac. That is both it's blessing and it's curse.

Besides, I get 90% of what I need from Linux on a Mac and the other 10% I can
get from a VM running Linux or a remote box.

~~~
darkhorn
Few days ago I've installed Ubuntu on at work. I cannot open folders under
many directories because I don't have permissions. Then I gave permissions,
with the terminal. And guess what? I has started to reset its static IP. I
wanted to ad cron jobs, they didn't work, also you write them as text, I have
no idea how they work. When you shut down Ubuntu from terminal the PC goes for
sleep, it doesn't power off. You don't have administrative rights in your PC,
you always need to open terminal and sudo su. There are some workarounds that
they either don't work or breaks other things. You don't have wizards when
installing a software, you need to study the manuals and then sudo su in to
the terminal to configure the files, and then you have to learn how to write a
file from terminal. If you are lucky it works. Do you know how to enter Google
Public DNS IPs to the settings? You have to ask it to your friend. Tip: use
comma. It is good for servers because it is free. However not so much user
friendly for desktop users. Thanks for making it guys. It is second best OS,
after FreeBSD.

~~~
pritambaral
While reading this comment, all through it right until the last word, I
thought you sounded like an accustomed Windows user fresh into Linux
territory, wayward and misguided by some unknowledgeable sources.

Every single pain point you listed can be summed up simply by, as you said, "I
have no idea how they work".

At that last word: it all went further confusing. I don't see how FreeBSD
doesn't have a permissions model, or text-edited configs, or has installer
wizards (yuck!). Did you mistype 'OS X' as 'FreeBSD'?

------
Satoshietal
As a consumer family, during 2014 we bought several used Win 7 i5 Lenovo T410
and T510 from a simply-lovely and adorable eBay vendor. $200-$250 price class.

The ones with video GPUs chips went to the kids. They're extremely happy, so
the laptoos must be good enough. They use them daily. I got The Beast, and
added an SSD and BluRay player drive. I'm very happy too.

It's been a great year for used computer hardware. The available used hardware
with Win 7 is great. YMMV.

Merry Xmas!!

------
krick
Are you joking? Of course I would. But "better" and "amazing" are pretty
ambiguous words. And, well, for that matter, I'm already using Linux laptop,
not produced by Apple. There are some decent ones. Thinkpad T440s is pretty
good, for instance, although I like metal cases indeed.

And one thing to remember is that one advantage of MacBooks as they come isn't
the hardware itself, but that OS is well optimized for that particular
hardware: if you're installing Linux on your MacBook battery lifetime becomes
quite shorter. Wouldn't it be nice to optimize Linux that way? Yeah, it would,
but I personally don't know how we can do that.

------
allworknoplay
I don't mean to be critical, but it seems like kind of the wrong question to
ask. Anyone who would answer yes to this question has already answered it in
practice: I have a mac, and I could well install linux on it, but I don't. I
used to use thinkpads when they didn't suck, and I tried linux but always had
driver and media troubles (that was a decade ago and has absolutely gotten
better, but definitely not perfect).

There are plenty of good computers out there, and anyone who would actually go
full time linux has probably already made that decision.

So instead, ask who's put their money where their mouth is and purchased a
personal computer to dedicate at least mostly to linux.

(Not me).

~~~
danceturkey
I do exclusively use Linux Mint on a Macbook Air 13'' (deleted the Mac
partition) and I am extremely happy with it so far. The hardware is great and
there is support for pretty much every piece of hardware on the device.

~~~
raarts
How's the battery life?

------
kevinherron
No.

The hardware is only part of the problem, and I think something like Dell's
XPS 13 is of reasonable quality.

The problem is (as it has always been) that linux lacks the quality, polish,
and application ecosystem to make it a suitable desktop environment (for me,
at least).

------
theonewolf
What about System76? Aren't they in the exact market space/niche you're
describing?

[https://system76.com/](https://system76.com/)

~~~
vinceguidry
I replaced my work laptop (MBP 15") with a System76 GalagoPro. I wanted the
Galago for my personal machine, but stuff like the trackpad just didn't work
half as well. I bought a Macbook Air for my personal machine, and will end up
getting a Linux desktop for my home office.

~~~
zanny
I got the Galago model from another retailer because they were cheaper and I
was hearing horror stories at the time about system76 support. Apparently they
got their act together and made a big positive PR campaign in the months
following that won back mindshare though.

Yea, the trackpad is shit. But all trackpads are shit, including the MBP
trackpad, having used at least the 2010 and 2013 models my friends have for a
few days at a time. I always use a bluetooth or wired mouse with a notebook.
The hinge scares me to death though, and the screen has more flex than a
veteran stripper. The revised keyboard I actually really like though. I use a
mechanical one at my workstation and honestly do not mind the chiclet keyboard
on the Galago at all.

The connectivity is fantastic. HDMI and displayport out means I can run triple
monitor off the thing, and the i7 with Iris graphics means it can actually run
three monitors. Three USB is great, the battery life is fine (I get about 4 -
6 hours of web browsing and emailing, 3 - 4 of movie streaming). The size is
fine. If they had made it unibody aluminum and got rid of the screen flex by
making it slightly thicker, I would have paid another $100 and been completely
sold. I just threw a 256GB SSD in plus the 1TB mechanical it comes with and it
is a portable monster that is actually compact.

End of the day, it was a much better buy IMO than a $2000+ MBP, despite the
shortcomings. Though I'm actually really interested in trying out a low end
Chromebook with Kubuntu on it to see how that plays at some point.

~~~
vinceguidry
The GalagoPro is better when you don't actually have to use it as a laptop,
then you don't have to deal with the limitations of the hardware.

The 13" Macbook Air is the best laptop on the market, IMO. Those 13" Retina's
look great, but the killer feature on a laptop is battery life. I can take or
leave graphics, memory, and power, but if the battery life sucks, then it's
basically tethered to a power brick.

Funny thing is battery life isn't that big of a deal on a smartphone. I have a
Nexus 5 and I don't mind that I have to charge it every day. I have a wireless
charger that I put it down on, no big deal. But I don't want to have to do
that with a laptop. Strange why I feel that way.

Skip the low-end Chromebook. I tried it, the fact that the battery still
drains when it's in sleep mode makes it a non-starter. I don't want to be
plugging it up every time I use it. Linux just hasn't been tuned well-enough
to make it a decent laptop OS.

~~~
sbuk
>> Linux just hasn't been tuned well-enough to make it a decent laptop OS.

Exactly this! Take the time to tune and integrate the OS to the specific
hardware, which would probably mean making a custom Linux, but isn't that the
joy of OSS? I know that it's frowned upon to mention aesthetics, but they do
matter. Marry that with build quality and you'd have the right ingredients for
success. Price point is what it is.

------
ebiester
I, personally, want the T420 with a better (16:10) screen and speakers. The
processor is also starting to get a bit long in the tooth for what I do.

I don't even need a 4:3. (I prefer two side-by-side columns for coding.)

Oh, and the system should wake from sleep properly 100% of the time rather
than 96% of the time (as my t420 does) and I shouldn't have intermittent wi-fi
problems (as my t420 does.) So, I think the bigger key is having the tech work
perfectly rather than look pretty.

~~~
iron_ball
Completely agreed. I've been able to work quite effectively on a T520i -- but
I've also experienced occasional frustration with the hardware integration.
Every time I upgrade Ubuntu, I worry that I'm about to knock my system's
stability off its precarious perch, and sometimes it happens. Things just
aren't bulletproof.

For my next computer, I'm willing to spend the extra $1000 for a Mac, where I
can believe that things really will Just Work™.

~~~
zanny
You can buy a system76, thinkpenguin, Dell XPS 13, or Zareason computer and
expect Ubuntu to just work™. Stop buying Windows computers and saying its the
Linux distros fault the hardware isn't fully supported or stable, it is the
same thing as trying to install OSX on a Windows computer and complaining
nothing works. You gotta get supported products, and they _do_ exist now, they
are just a small and growing market. But it will only grow if people actually
buy barebones / Ubuntu machines to send the message people are willing to buy
them and not just add to the sales figures of Windows laptop nine million.

~~~
ebiester
[http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1pwwr0/system76_is_sc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1pwwr0/system76_is_screwing_me_need_a_laptop/)

When I last checked the reviews of the system76 laptops, there were more
problems than the T420. The Zareason systems have those awful keyboards from
the looks of it, and even the "UltraLap" looks bulky. And it includes a
terrible resolution screen. (Why is anything shipping with 1366x768 anymore?)

They either aren't thinking of programmers, or they don't have the money to
compete.

I'm considering the XPS 13, but the screen is too small. I want a thin 14 or
15 inch laptop. (The T420 doesn't quite make it in that regard, but it's old
technology at this point.) And, of course, the XPS 15 doesn't have a ubuntu
edition.

I'm willing to make a sacrifice for weight if the keyboard and monitor are top
notch (like the T420) but nobody is taking keyboards seriously anymore. And as
far as I can tell, the best keyboard and screen today is Apple.

I've spent the last 3 years with my personal laptop running Linux. I'll
probably stick with this until I can't anymore. But I'm not willing to
sacrifice my productivity "to make a point."

~~~
zanny
I have the Clevo 740SU from Xotic, due to the negative press around System76
from early last year. You can get it without an OS and the only requirement is
replacing the wifi card if you want a good wireless nic.

Its 14", thin, powerful, etc - only downside is battery life, which only gets
3 - 6 hours depending on workload.

------
fauxscot
No.

There's more to it than the hardware and the OS.

I've got ancient thinkpads (great machines), an old desktop, and an iPad Air1.
I use a fair amount of linux here and there. I'm not wed to any platform for
surfing, editing, writing, email, etc. I help support and maintain a lot of
friends' machines that are Apple, and 100% of my interactions with the
hardware and/or company have been successful, and relatively painless.
Sometimes, even delightful. As a 40 year veteran of computers (back to punch
cards), it's the best i've seen.

Still, hate it or not, Apple integration across a spectrum of devices is a big
factor. I think only Google comes close, and they have some drawbacks.

So no... i would not consider a linux box to save a few bux. it's not what you
pay, it's what it costs.

final note... linux updates too frequently for my tastes...an artifact of its
dispersed development.

~~~
zanny
> linux updates too frequently for my tastes...an artifact of its dispersed
> development.

Do you even notice how often Mach is updating in OSX? Does it show up
anywhere? If you use Linux and you use it as a tool and not as a playground,
you should not care what kernel you are running, _besides_ checking device
compatibility. Most users should be running an Ubuntu LTS and only upgrading
every two years, and that should be fine for most people.

> t's not what you pay, it's what it costs.

And my counterargument is using Apple products means you are putting blind
faith in Apples proprietary software to work in your interests. We already
know Windows is backdoored and wire tapped systemically, and Apple is usually
a bit better by open sourcing their plumbing, but iOS and the Lion app store
should be a tangible warning on how Apple is trying to take you out of the
your computer equation. Software freedom is about owning your hardware, and it
seems Apple is trying pretty hard to go against that.

------
valarauca1
Honestly no.

The crowd who uses Linux primarily currently is well versed with installing it
on a Mac, or any laptop really. Linux is built on the notion of self-reliance,
self-development, do it yourself, laugh in the face of danger [1]. So
marketing to people who hold these principles is challenging.

On top of that MacOSX is a full Unix w/ Bash + GNU utils. So functionally from
a developers perspective you don't gain much of anything. Interacting with a
Mac or Linux from the CLI is pretty much the same.

[1]
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/linux.dev.kernel/qeeP5...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/linux.dev.kernel/qeeP584Ny08/CM0gZB0L7nQJ)

~~~
dman
My experience installing Linux on a recent macbook pro was not very good. It
picks the nvidia card as the gpu and does not give me an option to switch to
using the intel gpu.

It is true that OSX is a full unix, but it does not come with a package
manager resulting in a subpar developer workstation experience out of the box.
In practice I have never found homebrew / fink / macports to ever be as
reliable as yum / apt / ports on Linux / BSD.

Also setting up gdb on mac currently is a bit of an exercise.

~~~
zanny
Wow, I just realized I cannot imagine how anyone can develop software on a Mac
considering the lack of package management outside Homebrew. I never even
though of that, I just didn't use Macs because the UI looks like shit and the
whole display manager and up is proprietary.

------
osivertsson
No.

But a lightweight (<1kg) passively cooled laptop with a great keyboard, an
excellent e-ink screen with at least FullHD resolution, good battery life, and
fully open source software and firmware would. Any arch (MIPS, ARM, SH4,
whatever) is fine with me.

~~~
DanBC
Recently I've read a bunch of people who want eink screens.

I'm a bit confused: the refresh rate is _terrible_ for eink. Typing text would
be painful. Maybe the year 2020 will have great quality fast eink but today
it'd be a pretty lousy experience.

~~~
osivertsson
Somebody has to be the first to try it and spend som R&D on trying to get it
to work.

During the last summers I've been reading and commenting at HN and other
forums at the beach with the lousy browser on my ultra-slow Sony PRS-T1 e-book
reader.

It's a pretty terrible experince, agreed. Scrolling and waiting for eink
refresh every now and then, text input is laggy. Still I do it since it is so
easy to read in sunlight!

I'm sure with a faster CPU to render webpages quicker and some engineering
ingenuity to perhaps allow quicker refreshes but lower contrast it could
become a real product for early adopters.

I'd be willing to pay $500 for something that is just a step above the current
terrible level, and if it works great and is hackable maybe $1000.

~~~
cdjk
I'm disappointed the Pixel Qi screens haven't become more popular. Sol
Computer ([http://www.solcomputer.com/](http://www.solcomputer.com/)) makes a
few devices with them, but they're overpriced and underpowered from what I can
tell. Otherwise their sunlight performance would be great.

------
lsiebert
So I use linux on my laptops as my primary OS. Mint on my thinkpad, crouton
with xubuntu and chromeos on my chromebook.

I often talk to other developers here in the bay area about their computers,
which are almost invariably macbooks. The reason that they continually cite
for macbooks is battery life. 10 to 12 hours of typical usage including web
browsing. A bit less if you are doing a fair bit of compiling.

If you want to make a laptop, you can do fine with commodity hardware,
provided you pick devices with an eye on power. That may mean working with
suppliers to get better drivers. I personally don't care if they are
proprietary blobs or open source... but power consumption on linux vs. windows
is often tracable to driver issues.

I mean a reasonably good screen and keyboard and trackpad are all important,
but reasonably good ones exist out there.

Iou need to spend a lot of time tuning battery life. You need to figure out
which commodity hardware devices draw the least power. You need to make the
computers sleep instantly when the screen is closed. Get battery life up.

If you are going to innovate on hardware, this is where I would do it. Lenovo
has a internal battery so you can hotswap external batteries. Dell had a
separate arm processor with their Latitude |ON feature and got crazy battery
life, and the Moto X had a separate dedicated processor for certain functions
to improve battery life... maybe have your machine include a low power
multicore arm processor and use that as much as possible, only using your
intel cpu when the arm is overwhelmed or can't run a specific program.

The other thing is you have to make your first product good enough so you can
improve your second product. Because to really make something good, you have
to innovate.

------
lgleason
I'd love to see something along the lines of the chromebook pixel, but with
more memory and a larger ssd. I have one running crouton, but because of those
two limitations I don't use it as often.

------
akbar501
For me yes, but I already use separate Linux and MBP laptops. I think about
upgrading my Linux laptop from time to time and I'd like something with the
power of my MBP with its form factor.

However, I'm a current Linux user (my primary dev machine) who'd be upgrading,
not converting from Mac to Linux.

IMHO, Linux is a kickass dev OS once you really get Linux. However, it does
lack the refinement of Mac OS, so I think it's a long shot that a substantial
number of devs would switch. My $0.02.

------
jsta
Not really.

Just thinking about general use personal computers (not remote boxes, servers,
etc.), the only thing I feel like Linux adds to the OS X experience is tiling
window managers.

But I only care about them on my giant 4K screen at home, where I only /need/
to use OS X for certain non-linux apps and where similar functionality comes
from 3rd party apps. On my laptop(s), I tend to full-screen basically
everything anyway, which works about the same on every system.

So, desktop PCs....no. You can build something better than any company can
offer for similar or less money and with the compromises you want instead of
the ones someone else decided on.

And for laptops, no. I find that I can get what I want from products that are
already on the market. I /would/ pay for an Apple Laptop with a 12" 16:10 very
high resolution screen and a trackpoint without thinking, though.

------
MrQuincle
Most often you get more bang for your buck if you do not need to limit
yourself to Apple hardware. So, if you use Linux you - very likely - have
already more hardware to your disposal for lesser cost.

So, I think the answer to "Does that appeal to me?" is yes. :-)

~~~
MrQuincle
I've been checking the laptop I bought in October 2012 for under a 1000 euro,
an Asus N56VZ-S4044V. Let me compare it with the Mid 2012 MacBook Air, say the
1400 USD model (although they are usually 1400 euros). Help me if this is the
wrong comparison!

[http://support.apple.com/kb/SP670](http://support.apple.com/kb/SP670)
[http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-
Asus-N56VZ-S4044V-Notebo...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-
Asus-N56VZ-S4044V-Notebook.78305.0.html)

First MBA, then Asus:

* Screen estate: 13" vs 15"

* Resolution: 1440 x 900 vs 1920 x 1080

* Processor: Dual Core i7 on 2.0GHz vs Quad Core i7-3610QM on 2.3 GHz

* Memory: 4GB DDR3 vs 8GB DDR3

* Storage: 256 GB vs 1 TB

* Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 (no other?) vs Nvidia GeForce GT650M plus the HD4000 GPU

All the other things might cancel out a bit. Bang & Olufsen speakers I don't
care for so much. Or Bluetooth 4.0 on the MBA. Ah, the battery life. That one
might be a pro for the MBA.

But perhaps things did change in the last two years! If I buy a new one, I
probably will go again for a laptop that ends up high at
[http://www.notebookcheck.net/](http://www.notebookcheck.net/) though. I
always go for good hardware.

------
NateDad
I have the 2013 XPS 15. Side by side with a macbook pro and they're almost
identical. The touch pad is a bit better on the Macbook, but it's not a huge
difference. Keyboard layouts are basically identical, and I like the tactile
feel of both. Build quality on the XPS 15 is excellent. The only problems I've
run into were driver problems that have been resolved. It's pretty amazing for
a dev machine on ubuntu. The one major advantage of the Macbook is battery
life. I only get 3.5 hrs with the 6 cell battery. Apple definitely has some
great battery voodoo.

Anyway, I'm super happy with it as a high end Linux laptop.

------
mb0
Depends on the cost, and the hardware & software components that are used. I
currently run debian jessie on both my desktop (home-build), and on my cheap
hp laptop that I bought a few years ago. I won't buy a new apple computer
simply because they are well outside of my budget. I did buy a macbook refurb
some years ago, and enjoyed it a lot, but I still stuck with my hp laptop for
most work.

I would get some peace of mind knowing that all hardware components are going
to be supported by the linux kernel. However, I'm probably going to rip the OS
out of the system and install my own.

------
throwaway5752
I have a MBP and an old F20 T61 beater, and both are great. Ubuntu 14 is
great, too, and I sporadically run that in places but we all have our
preferences and I like the EL-family of distros more.

Windows 7 is perfectly fine, too. They even seem to be rescuing 8 post-
Nadella.

Really, the thing is a web browser and a shell. Anything with a physical
keyboard is better than a phone or a tablet.

Either of them run VMWare or VirtualBox just fine, so I can run any OS I like,
regardless. Generally I got with the MBP for that reason, because the build
quality is good enough of the licensing PITA that Mac makes for virtualizing
OS X.

------
keithpeter
_" Does the idea of a computer that bundles a linux distro into one amazing
piece of tech like d mac, at a lesser cost, appeal to you?"_

I'd want replaceable battery, replaceable hard drive/ssd and would put up with
a thicker case, the X classic series Thinkpad form factor or a tad thinner
would be OK. A decent keyboard (agnostic as to chicklet/traditional but with
sensible key sizes) would be needed.

Warning: I'd expect Trisquel or gNewSense to 'just work'. No proprietary
anything. De-blobbed kernel.

------
whiddershins
A linux computer of the quality of a mac is basically ... a mac. Yes, the mac
isn't an open source-based computer but every other aspect of what makes it "a
mac" is the quality of function, design, and integration. If anyone could
bring a computer to market that had those qualities without the walled garden,
I'm sure it would be wildly popular, but the challenges inherent in doing that
are obvious. The post begs the question.

------
frozenport
I cant use a Mac laptop because it doesnt have CUDA.

------
dman
Unequivocally yes. As a developer having an identical setup on my local
machine that I do on my server saves so much time. Besides none of the
commercial OS's have a package manager that comes close to the package
managers on linux / bsd.

~~~
cryptophreak
Homebrew.

~~~
psykovsky
That's not a package manager, that's an hack.

------
ramidarigaz
Gosh yeah. I use Linux as my primary OS now on a cheap-ish laptop (student),
and even with the low-DPI screen, so-so keyboard and odd hardware
compatibility issues, I love it. I'd pay quite a bit for some high quality
hardware.

------
grover_hartmann
I don't like Macs nor Apple.

I already use Linux on a ThinkPad and I'm very happy with it.

------
dllthomas
I would worry that the bundling bundling would be along lines I don't like. I
currently use a System76 laptop, but wind up ripping out much of the default
setup. That said, I'd certainly look at it.

------
dmishe
No, I have to use linux desktop at work form time to time and constantly
amazed how fucking terrible it is. I think I would rather use OSX on Asus
hardware.

------
ozcanesen
I think biggest problem about Linux is X server. Without modern and fresh
display server Linux desktop enviroments just trying to be alive with hacks
and workarounds.

~~~
Gracana
Eradicating tearing throughout my desktop and applications has always been an
enormous problem for me. I'm ready for X to die.

------
solomatov
It's Chromebook pixel. Unfortunately, Google didn't provide option for memory
and SSD upgrade. Otherwise, I would stop using apple and use linux on it.

------
chomp
Yes. I am using a Lenovo Thinkpad, and I think about getting a macbook and
installing Linux on it all of the time.

I hate OS X, but love the hardware.

------
runjake
Sure it appeals to me, but what's the point of this submission? A thought
exercise or are you assessing interest?

~~~
akoder
I wanted to assess the interest. I wanted to know if there are other people
out there who would love a linux laptop. This is actually a personal itch of
mine. i feel the only thing holding back linux is quality hardware which truly
brings out the best in it. Hence, after gauging the interest here I have
started communicating with a few manufacturers. So stay tuned! :)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes that's it exactly. I've tried to use Linux on the desktop in several
startups. Each time, the hardware had outstripped Linux support. We'd have
raid scsi controllers; Linux would use them as single drives. We'd have good
graphics cards; Linux would run in the lowest mode.

So we switched to running supported OSs, with Linux running in a virtual
machine for the tools we couldn't get otherwise. (We were building software
for embedded Linux devices)

I suppose it had something to do with Linux being done open-source. Which
means it has to wait for some interested party to get around to supporting new
hardware. I used to say, we could use Linux full-time once it had a 'have
disk' button like other OSs. Meaning once I could install drivers from the
manufacturer frictionlessly.

I imagine all that's been fixed by now? I haven't been tempted to use Linux in
5 years.

------
tarminian
Already have several. Nothing special about them, just the myth that they are
better.

------
unkoman
Just get me a laptop with a trackpad as good as the mac and i'll be there.

~~~
eveningcoffee
And when you are at it, add a good trackpoint for good measure.

------
rman666
I think it depends on how much of "a lesser cost."

------
ZanyProgrammer
There's always the Dell XPS 13.

~~~
_red
I have both an XPS and MBAir (2012 model).

I routinely boot the same linux-USB desktop distro on both.

The XPS is probably a bit faster (i7), and screen DPI is better. But, MBA
provides and overall better experience.

The most glaring things that stick out in MBA favor is: (a) keyboard, (b)
touchpad.

The XPS touchpad is really sub-par given the focus of the machine as a
development platform. Often while typing, the slightest brush against it will
cause the cursor to jump. This is not an issue on the MBA.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
How is the power management on the XPS? Does opening and closing the lid work
decently?

~~~
chambo622
I have an XPS 13 Ivy Bridge generation running Ubuntu and power management is
perfectly fine.

My WiFi does seem rather poor in terms of signal strength/stability compared
to other devices I own, however.

------
wging
Yes.

------
xxyyxx
This _is_ the chromebook. Maybe it's not 100% there just yet, but in a couple
years it might be. In any case, HTML + CSS + JS is the UI of the future, and
your OS will be irrelevant by then.

