

Ask HN: Bad software or bad hardware, the choice is yours - sfilipov

I noticed the recent top stories about OS X quality going down in the past few releases and people discussing the possibility of moving to Linux.<p>I never owned a MacBook and never used OS X, I have a 2011 Dell Latitude running Linux. I thought &quot;3 years have passed since my laptop purchase, MacBooks are great but OS X not so much lately. I am happy with my experience with Linux, maybe I can get a new machine which is better than my current one instead of going for a MacBook&quot;.<p>What&#x27;s historically the best type of laptop running Linux? It&#x27;s a ThinkPad. But in 2015 they ship with 4GB RAM soldiered to the motherboard and running in single channel (T450s, X250). Bear in mind these are the newest ThinkPads that were announced today. The memory is upgradable to 8GB. Thanks, we already had this in 2011.<p>What&#x27;s the point of the whole industry push for longer battery, powerful integrated graphics and creating the ultrabook specification only to ruin it in a small but important way.<p>Long story short - the PC vendors are trying <i>really</i> hard to make the worst machines they can think of and break things.<p>And then there&#x27;s Apple making great hardware but failing on the software front (that&#x27;s my impression reading about other people&#x27;s experience). So... regardless of the hardware improvements the last few years, I think there&#x27;s a &quot;people&quot; problem, teams failing to produce a coherent software and hardware package.<p>I think I will stick with my 3-year old laptop until it breaks (most likely the hinges). Then get a MacBook running OS X because it is still better than the alternatives.
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MichaelCrawford
I'm going to install Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon on my Retina Display MacBook
Pro.

It has 8 GB of memory. I don't know whether it can be upgraded but I don't see
a panel for installing extra memory.

IMHO 8 GB is plenty for anything I'd ever want to do with a laptop. My Xeon
workstation has 16 GB; it never ever experiences page faults. But if it did,
it's socketed for 64 GB of FB-DIMM.

Apple hardware, for the most part, holds its value better than your typical
boxen that is used for Windows. If you got the same configuration I had, you
could purchase it used for less than a grand, install Linux on it, then be
very happy.

I really like my Retina display, so much so that I actively dislike regular
screens. My understanding is that Linux supports the Retina - it's called
something else under Linux - and that this support can be enabled by Mint, but
I haven't actually checked.

VirtualBox doesn't support the Retina, I think I'd have to boot natively to
use it.

I was OK with Snow Leopard, but IMHO, OS X as well as iOS have been going
downhill since. I may not even submit my App to the App Store. I might well
just provide a source tarball on my website, then say goodbye to the Steve
Jobs Reality Distortion Field for good.

This has been a tough decision, as I was once a White Badge Apple Employee,
and on another occasion did QA tools there as a contract programmer.

Apple is a great place to work, but it has always sucked to be an Apple
developer.

~~~
sfilipov
I actually run Mint 17.1 on my Latitude and it works quite well out of the
box.

From what I read, Linux's DEs (Unity, Gnome 3 and Cinnamon) don't work well
with HiDPI screens (i.e. Retina or any other 1080p+ screen) even though they
are supported in theory. I hope you have a positive experience running Mint on
the MacBook.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
Heh.

I'd like to contribute something of substance to the Linux codebase. If the
screen indeed does not work well, maybe I can fix it.

I've been an Apple developer since 1986.

------
wmf
Keep in mind that a Mac can run any OS a ThinkPad can run.

You're also getting a slightly biased view of the PC market at CES. Intel
announced low-end dual-core processors, so all the PC vendors announced low-
end laptops. When Intel has a new quad-core processor available, expect to see
some new high-end laptops.

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LarryMade2
Software can be overcome with software, either upgrades or maybe an OSS
replacement (may not be way better, but you are at least in control of what
pain you want).

Hardware if it is really bad may may not be overcome.

------
ISNIT
I have a Macbook Air with Arch Linux on - Love it. The hardware runs well (for
the most part) and the software is getting to be more supported by the Arch
Team.

I really enjoy my current set up, even though it took a while to get here!

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EleventhSun
Might be worth looking into ASUS notebooks (for ubuntu-based distros, that
is).

I run an N76 with no driver issues, and 16GB RAM. I believe there are other
models that work well too.

