
MacBook Pro (2016) disappointment pushes some Apple loyalists to Ubuntu Linux - StreamBright
http://betanews.com/2016/10/30/macbook-pro-2016-disappointment-pushes-some-apple-loyalists-to-ubuntu-linux/
======
TheAceOfHearts
There's so many negative articles about the new MBP... I wonder how many
people have tried it out? I think it looks interesting, and I'm trying to keep
an open mind on the touchbar. The lack of escape worries me a bit, but my
experience with macOS has been so overwhelmingly positive that my gut keeps
telling me to try it out before passing judgement.

The change towards USB C for everything seems like a good long-term move to
me. A magsafe adapter for charging would be perfect, but it's hardly a deal
breaker for me. I don't mind buying a few adapters. Maybe I'm in the minority.
If I'm already carrying around a backpack, what difference do a few adapters
make? I'd probably only need an HDMI and USB adapter to interface with most
peripherals anyway. When I'm outside of home or work, I don't even use any
peripherals.

The 16GB RAM limit is fine for all my needs. My work laptop has 16GB and it
can accommodate all my needs just fine. The only thing it falls short on is
storage. I find myself having to clean up downloads semi-regularly.

With that being said, I think it's great that linux desktops are getting more
love. I dislike the closed nature of macOS, and if I could pay to get an
equivalent experience on an open system, I'd gladly do so. Thanks to Hacker
News I learned about Elementary OS, which I'm gonna be trying out soon. Vala
looks really interesting! I had never heard of it before, and I'm looking
forward to having a free weekend to do a deep dive.

~~~
ramblerman
I think you are simplifying the argument a bit too much by ignoring price.

In Europe (Dublin) I would have to pay 3750 EUR to get a macbook pro (without
kaby lake and with 16gigs of ram)

I bought my 2012 retina model with 16gigs of ram 4 years ago for 2050 EUR

~~~
javier2
I am also in Europe, and the new model is insanely expensive to the point
where I can no longer defend getting one for personal use. My job will
probably buy one the next time I'm due for an upgrade.

------
aaronbrager
This "article" cites no data and is basically just an ad for System76.com.

~~~
ufukbay
I couldn't agree more. Especially this part really makes me smash my head
against the wall:

"Instead of 16GB of RAM as found on the Apple, I configured with 32GB (you can
go up to 64GB if needed). By default, it comes with a 6GB Nvidia GTX 1060. The
price? Less than $2,000! In other words, the System76 machine with much better
specs is less expensive than Apple's."

I'm not an Apple fanboy but since the company I work for provides us with any
hardware we want, most of us use Macbook Pros. The thing is, sure, it might
have 16GB more RAM but it looks like a huge black brick. I'm not even going to
start talking more about design but how can you even compare 2.49kg weight to
1.83kg of the Macbook Pro?

~~~
kagamine
My ZBook is over 5kg, my car doesn't seem to mind.

My point, weight unknown, is that Apple are _so_ focussed on thinness they
have forgotten that I have "legacy" hardware lying around, still in use. I
refuse to spend $ on replacing working external drives, usb sticks and more
(home studio sound card for example) simply because some company has decided I
need "to get with the times".

Apple want a consumer market in which users consume, consume, consume like
tech is a loaf of bread. I'm not buying into that.

~~~
ufukbay
I understand your point of view but I think it depends highly on your
individual use case. I also drive to work by car but I carry around my MBP a
lot at work. We have lots of workshops, hackathons or code reviews where it
makes a huge difference that you don't have to carry around much.

~~~
kagamine
I realize that thin is good for some, but not all and Apple are only focusing
on that one thing, at the expense of everything, and everyone, else. But I
would also question whether you really need to shave off another 3 grams of
weight, which it looks like you'll be adding back in cables so you can use
those non-USB-C peripherals.

------
im_down_w_otp
I have tried several times to go Linux-only as my personal and work platform.
It's never the lack of programs that kills the experiment for me. It's the
total lack of consistency in the keyboard shortcuts and the fact that when
they emulate something at all... they emulate Windows shortcuts, which are
terrible.

If I could configure a Linux desktop environment to mimic Mac-style keyboard
shortcuts across the board, I'd have already switched to Linux full-time a
couple years ago when I finally got sick of waiting for Apple to release a new
MacBook Air.

I have a Vaio Pro 13, a Gen 3 X1 Carbon, and Dell XPS 13 in my closet as
casualties of my failed attempts to switch to Linux. :-(

~~~
giancarlostoro
When I first used Linux I installed Slackware which used the KDE Desktop
environment which asked me which key binding layout style I wanted: Mac,
Windows or a more Linux centric style. Not sure why I never see those options
when I setup a desktop environment anymore but Linux has several. I highly
recommend KDE because it is highly customizable just don't know where those
options disappeared off to. I always remembered it because I thought it was so
considerate.

~~~
im_down_w_otp
I actually got closest to my desired state in Linux using the latest Kubuntu
precisely because KDE at least provided the interface and facilities to rebind
pretty much all the shortcuts... at least in so far as KDE/Qt5 applications
were concerned.

The problem that I had was 1) it still wasn't super consistent in operation
(due to the layering of control and interaction between shortcuts for the DE
and for the WM), and 2) only a subset of the applications were proper KDE/Qt5
ones, and the most commonly used ones (Firefox & Chrome most decidedly didn't
conform).

So in the end, while I got to a 70-80% solution, there were still so many
irritating exceptions so often that it almost made the situation worse.
Because now I could get some applications to behave the way I wanted, but I'd
still be stuck with the default shortcuts in some applications, and I ended up
having to be extra vigilant of keeping track of which application I was
actively using and whether or not I could use my muscle-memory or not.

KDE is _by far_ the most complete architecture for layering in and overriding
keyboard shortcuts in a coherent centralized way relative to everything else I
could get my hands on. I really wish that the system for doing things like
that was actually an interoperability standard vis-a-vis the Freedesktop.org
or something.

------
gonzo41
I made this jump. Its been a net gain for me. learned new stuff, new
challenges etc.

Went from mac to ubuntu / thinkpad. I saved money doing this.

Things I wish I had that apple has now.....

All I can say is Welcome

~~~
bjz_
What model of Thinkpad? I'm another one considering jumping since the
announcement. :(

What do you wish you had?

~~~
gonzo41
I got myself a t460, 16 gig of ram, SSD. The two batteries were a big draw. I
don't mind it being a little thicker. I don't really have a desire to put my
laptop in a envelope that often :|

I don't really wish I had anything more, its enough and more importantly is
fairly easy to upgrade stuff on board if need be.

------
finchisko
I use Ubuntu on my PC daily and sometimes also mac for Xcode. But I don't see
new macs as disappoinment. Actually find them pretty cool. Only missing
magsafe. Some people see 16GB limit as a bummer. On my MB Air I have only 4
gigs and still can do serious development. Do you guys run kubernetes on it,
or what for you need more memory on a laptop? To be cool?

~~~
bad_user
I'm running a lot of tools in parallel and you need memory especially when
you're doing memory tracing and debugging, which is kind of obvious. I mean,
when you load 4 GB memory dumps, you tend to run out of memory pretty fast ;-)
Couple this with a compiler that watches for file changes and constantly
recompiles stuff in the background, runs tests and so on and with a full
fledged IDE, like IntelliJ IDEA, with a browser loaded with stuff and things
get painful.

I'm working on a MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM and it constantly swaps to disk.
Thank heavens I have an SSD, because otherwise it would have been unusable.

As to your response, dude, this attitude of " _you 're holding it wrong_" is
iconic of Apple. I mean I don't know what people are talking about, as Steve's
spirit is very much alive at Apple and within its user base and I never liked
it.

~~~
lazyjones
> _I 'm working on a MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM and it constantly swaps to
> disk. Thank heavens I have an SSD, because otherwise it would have been
> unusable._

Don't get me wrong, but if you're doing this kind of serious development,
perhaps a laptop isn't the best choice? The iMac 5K takes 64GB these days.

Perhaps I'm just too old and can't see why a laptop is a superior development
environment compared to a desktop with decent 27" display, mouse and
keyboard... Are you traveling much?

~~~
systemtest
Because then I'd have to buy an iMac 5K for home and one for the office. And
sync all my files and preferences between the two.

~~~
lazyjones
Or, you could buy a beefy desktop at work and use Apple Remote Desktop / VNC
on your laptop at home.

~~~
bad_user
If you've ever used Remote Desktop / VNC, you know that it just doesn't work.
The latency of the network communication is too great within your own local
network over Wifi, enough as to be a pain in the ass for work, let alone when
communicating over the Internet. And you'd better not be on a metered Internet
connection, because these high-resolution screens will produce data like
crazy.

I know it sounds cool in theory, but it just doesn't work, at all. Basically
Remote Desktop / VNC is only useful for short sessions and/or debugging, not
for work, unless you're in text mode with SSH, vim, screen, tools like that
;-)

~~~
lazyjones
> _If you 've ever used Remote Desktop / VNC, you know that it just doesn't
> work_

I wrote a DOS VNC client in 1999 for my ThinkPad 720 (to access my Sun
workstation at work from home), so my mileage varies. ;-)

We had lower screen resolutions and color depths then, but also slower
connections. I've used VNC quite a bit over the years but admittedly, for
working from home I used ssh (because it was sufficient and I use vi). FWIW,
practicality greatly depends on your type of work. Typing text in an IDE and
running the occasional debug session should be no problem due to the way
screen updates are transmitted, anything graphics-heavy will be frustrating.

------
Swizec
After days of thinking about it, I think I know where my disappointment stems
from.

I'm not disappointed with the new MBP, I'm disappointed that for the first
time in my life 4 years have passed and I can't buy a significantly better
machine than my old one. My old MBP has 16gb ram, 256gb SSD, 2.3Ghz quad core
(i7). A new MBP would be the same with maybe a slightly faster RAM and a bit
faster, but mostly just less hungry CPU architecture.

The GPU is marginally better but there's only so much you can shove in a
laptop. Modern GPU monsters are as big as my whole computer.

When I look around for a better laptop
(price/performance/weight/battery/everything) I can't find one.

 _That 's_ what I'm disappointed about.

~~~
danieldk
I understand that disappointment, but it is inevitable with two trends: the
end of Moore's law for CPUs and the fact that four year-old specs are good for
the bulk of users doesn't help to drive prices down.

The primary thing that has been improving since 2012 is the death of spinning
platters across the boards (though a lot of sub-$1000 laptops still seem to
have them) and larger SSDs in base models.

Of course, for some scenarios newer generation CPUs help tremendously. E.g.
AVX2 can be a large improvement if your work relies a lot on SIMD
instructions.

~~~
Swizec
Alas my biggest problem is that Chrome acts funny with 50+ tabs across 4+
windows (ram), that compiling JavaScript is slow (cpu) and that my computer
grinds to a halt when I'm livecoding (gpu rendering currently done by cpu
instead).

So yeah ... I hit all the things that aren't likely to improve soon.

------
pmx
I just wish adobe would get their act together and release photoshop and
friends for linux.

~~~
fredsir
I just wish somebody would make a replacement that made everybody want to
switch away from Photoshop and all the other Adobe products and onto the
replacement, and be satisfied with it.

Adobe is too comfortable. They have no reason to fix their software which is
basically some of the worst software I have tried to use professionally. It's
so bad that the reason I don't use Lightroom and Photoshop is not because of
the subscription based pricing of Adobe CC, but because that even though
Lightroom and Photoshop is more powerful than say Pixelmator, Gimp, Inkscape,
Sketch, (Apple) Photos, Affinity Photos, and what have we, the rest of the
software - and by that I mean the windows, the buttons, the settings,
basically the UI and UX - everything except for the actual algorithms that
alters your photos/videos/graphics - is awful. Complete shit. Oh, and don't
get me started on the the Adobe update thing that sits and runs in the
background of your Mac constantly which you have to install Photoshop and the
rest of the family through.

Until a real contender threatens Adobe, they won't do anything about it
because right now they can ship complete bullshit that runs on both Mac and
Windows and make a lot of money doing that terrible job, which satisfies them
because they can keep more money themself instead of on people that could make
their products better.

Please, Adobe, make your software great again, and make it run on all the
platforms. Right now it's utter crap. Fix it!

~~~
AnthonBerg
Actually Adobe's algorithms are substandard as well. For example, rezising
algorithms are few and naive. Also, last I checked the higher bit depths don't
work as well as 8bpc - only a limited subset of operations work. Almost the
entirety of it is fool's gold.

~~~
fredsir
That might be true. I dunno. Its just what I have understood from
professionals that won't switch. If that is neither the case, well then I
don't know why they are still hanging around. Might be UI and shortcuts
familiarity, I guess.

~~~
AnthonBerg
It's complicated and interesting. Familiarity yes; Also I guess that people
don't know that they can expect better. And maybe also that it _is_ a whole
workflow.

------
angry_octet
I think the point is that you can get hardware which is cheaper, faster and
better. To give one example:

[http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-
stealth](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-stealth) $US999
with QHD + touch, 128GB SSD, Intel 620, 1.3kg
[http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-
blade](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade) $2099 with QHD +
touch, 256GB SSD, nVidia 1060, 1.9kg

Plus Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.0, HDMI.

And a priceless escape key.

------
renaudg
IBM's much-talked about TCO argument for Macs also holds true for individuals
IMHO :

\- Don't just look at the initial outlay that gets you on the Apple ladder :
Macs also have a much, much better resale value than PCs, even years later.
It's incremental and relatively painless if you upgrade regularly.

\- You're a human, your peace of mind matters and your time isn't free. Buy
stuff that brings you joy or at a minimum, stuff that doesn't feel like death
by a thousand cuts day after day. And you might not recognize that before
you've tried a Mac, seriously (I used to be a hardcore desktop Linux guy until
2004)

As someone who briefly lost faith in Apple last year, then went ahead and
built a Hackintosh ("why not?"), I can't stress the second point nearly
enough.

My high end 32GB 4Ghz Core i7 box with Thunderbolt and a 32" screen cost me
about 25% less than a top of the line iMac that satisfies the same use cases.
Great.

The money I saved is roughly what I make in 1-2 days, but I've spent at least
a dozen evenings so far researching / troubleshooting / preparing for OS
upgrades. Plus I need to reboot the box once after each cold boot before it
will see my TB devices and I can play music on my audio interface. Great. Not
to mention the floor/desk space compared to an iMac.

The tinkering was fun at times, I don't completely regret trying, but frankly
life is too short : guess who's going back to the Mac next time ?

~~~
lixquid
I think your "death by a thousand cuts" comment really resonates with me; but
it is a point against MacOS (and Windows!), not for.

Yes, most things "just work". But if something just doesn't quite work in the
way you want it to, you often have to move heaven and earth to hack around the
problem, maybe even "accepting" that there's nothing you can do, and
constantly suffer that irritation every time you butt up against it.

Personally, I have always preferred having my environment "just-so". After
suffering constant little niggles when I'm forced to use MacOS or Windows,
it's wonderfully refreshing to come home to my configured linux system.

------
ionwake
I just made my first real jump into CentOS with Gnome on an X1 Carbon Thinkpad
from MacOS.

It was super easy to install, took less than an hour, and it included the
window manager with the install package. I have had no problems at all. ( I
first tried the KDE window manager but found Gnome less buggy IMO)

Highly recommend it. Especially with this addon I found called conky which
provides real time hardware stats.

[http://i.imgur.com/4WeQulo.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/4WeQulo.jpg)

~~~
cbcoutinho
That's a cool conky setup, do you have any files available publicly to
checkout?

~~~
ionwake
[http://didi79.deviantart.com/art/conky-
config-127651851](http://didi79.deviantart.com/art/conky-config-127651851)

=]

------
davidgerard
Long-time Ubuntu fan here, been using Ubuntu as my desktop of choice since
2005, and even I think this reads like advertorial for System76.

BTW, if you do this move, give Xubuntu a go. Ever since Unity and GNOME 3,
XFCE has managed the elusive trick of _not fucking up_ and _not inflicting an
exercise in gratuitous architecture astronautics on the end user_. You might
think that sounds easy and straightforward not to do, but evidently it's
eluded all of KDE, GNOME and Canonical.

~~~
wuschel
I second this. I have switched from Windows 7 to Xubuntu and have never looked
back. It runs smoothly on a X61 IBM Notebook with 4 GB RAM. If I have to use
an expensive software suite that is only available on Windows/MacOS, I Switch
to virtualized Windows 7 mashine.

~~~
davidgerard
In my experience, Wine is always worth trying first. Definitely good enough
for quite a lot of production work with that one obscure Windows binary you
absolutely need, in _most_ cases.

------
danieldk
_Alternatively, I headed to System76 and configured its 15-inch Oryx Pro. I
closely matched the MacBook Pro specs, with a Quad-core Sklyake i7 and NVMe
256GB SSD. Instead of 16GB of RAM as found on the Apple, I configured with
32GB (you can go up to 64GB if needed). By default, it comes with a 6GB Nvidia
GTX 1060. The price? Less than $2,000! In other words, the System76 machine
with much better specs is less expensive than Apple 's._

Of course, this is quite disingenuous, because it elides a lot of other
aspects:

* The Oryx Pro is 0.7kg heavier (it's almost a MacBook 12" heavier).

* Depending on the model 0.9 to 1.3cm thicker. It's also wider and deeper.

* The new MacBook Pro has a wide gamut display. The Oryx Pro doesn't. Moreover the Oryx Pro does not have a retina display (but 1920 × 1080).

* Apparently, the battery life of an Oryx Pro is about 2 hours [1]. The MacBook Pro lasts 10 hour during active use. I expect that for most laptop users a two hour battery life is a deal-breaker.

* The new MacBook Pro has the Touch Bar, which may be a nice feature (it's too early to tell) and definitely adds a lot of cost to the BOM.

Hardware is not only about the CPU/GPU/Memory. We could produce 5kg laptops
with nVidia Teslas and server-grade Xeon CPUs. It could possibly be done
cheaper than the highest spec'ed MacBook Pro. But as a laptop it would be
pretty useless to almost anyone.

Moreover, for the regular MacBook user (as opposed to the tech crowd) I expect
that good Chromebooks are a far more serious threat than Ubuntu or System 76.

[1] [http://betanews.com/2015/12/29/system76-oryx-pro-ubuntu-
linu...](http://betanews.com/2015/12/29/system76-oryx-pro-ubuntu-linux-
review/)

~~~
mattmanser
I built my own last time I bought and the other thing you can't test is how
noisy they are.

My laptop occasionally sounds like a plane taking off.

------
frik
The mentioned Oryp2 notebook looks interesting. Though, I would buy a 12-14"
notebook (<2kg) with mate display. I wish Apple or Lenovo would get their act
together and release good notebooks for actual work like the old T410/X210 or
older MacBookPro (pre retina) with a good keyboard (+ traditional IBM PC
layout with grouped keys). What we get nowadays is shit made by people who
don't understand what they are doing.

------
_pdp_
Apart from the missing ESC (yes I am too a VI/M user) key I am not sure what
else do you want from a mobile computer - apart from better battery of course
and more energy efficiency.

I do stuff on Unreal occasionally and for that I have a dedicated computer
that is good enough to handle the IDE. Can I run this on MacPro from 2013 -
sure - but the experience is not great and I doubt there is any laptop out
there that will ever be good enough in terms of energy efficiency, battery
life and portability to handle Unreal in all of its glory.

Yes the new MacPros are on par with the last generation but not so much. We
have pretty performant hardware that sits mostly underutilized. As soon as you
start pumping code on a low-performant microcontroller you will know what I
mean. Previous generation of programmers were doing exactly this - making the
best of the hardware that was available to them.

------
hellofunk
Has anyone else used machines by System76? It sounds great, but I wonder if
this video is just marketing.

~~~
glitch
It's marketing. Blatant ad. System76 had build quality issues in the past; no
idea if they've fixed their issues in the present.

------
antouank
Why not go with the "new" Razer blade[0]? Seems like a good fork of the MBP.

0: [http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/gaming-systems/razer-
blade](http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/gaming-systems/razer-blade)

~~~
soneil
Same cpu, same ram, same number of ports, less storage options and half the
battery life.

Good question!

~~~
nazka
The difference is an awesome GPU (the GTX 1060) and at an affordable price.
For people who wanted that I think it's a great option. Even the design looks
like a MacBook Pro.

If you don't want that much graphic power the Stealth version is the way to
go. Way cheaper and with 9 to 10 hours of battery.

I start to really like Razor here and I may buy one rather than the new
MacBook. The ice on the cake with these 2 laptops is the external GPU they do,
the Razor Core, giving you all the power of a desktop PC at home while using
the same computer. No need to buy a laptop And a desktop for home. No need to
do transfer and sync all the time. Just your laptop and the Core.

------
biehl
I recently updated and played with Ubuntu 16.04 on my 2013 Dell XPS 13.
Everything worked surprisingly well.

Two finger scroll, tap to click etc. It is fast and smooth.

However, I don't need 32GB RAM enough for that to be a deciding factor between
eg. a Dell XPS 15 and the new MBP 15".

------
partycoder
Unfortunately this is just an ad. I think gaming on Linux will come from Valve
(Steam).

The missing piece is widespread Vulkan support. That will turn the tides in
favor of Linux.

------
elcct
Ubuntu on Windows in Insider Preview is really usable. I find experience much
better than in the macOS regarding the shell

~~~
chrisan
> Ubuntu on Windows in Insider Preview is really usable.

For anyone trying this, remember to enable QuickEdit Mode under the command
prompt's properties.

I don't recall what all the defaults were, but I do have everything checked
now (except use Legacy Mode)

Alternatively to window's cmd prompt:
[https://conemu.github.io/en/BashOnWindows.html](https://conemu.github.io/en/BashOnWindows.html)

------
keyle
There is only one thing that keeps people from jumping platform... The
software they need to run. That's the true hurdle from switching from mac/pc
to pc/mac to linux/bsd.

Imagine a world where you could truly chose any OS and run your
favourite/needed software on it. I'd be on linux or bsd too.

------
pjmlp
If their work can be done with tools available in Ubuntu Linux, they surely
weren't Apple loyalists.

------
mseepgood
How does installing Ubuntu on it fix the hardware?

------
jlebrech
why not install crouton on a chromebook, and for games install steam on the
chromebook and get a windows gaming pc to do home streaming?

you could also install xen so both your home-ci/compilation beast and games os
is available at all times.

------
k_sze
But the screen resolution ...

------
somecallitblues
SystemWho? That MacBook Pro is worth every penny. And 2% of people may need
something more powerful

------
somecallitblues
systemwho? Garbage article and promotion for systemwho

