Off topic: Looking for a new portable laptop

bep · June 12, 2015, 9:40pm

Yea, it’s not about Hugo, but you guys are filled with so much knowledge.

So my on-the-run-laptop is showing some wear now (loose keys…, too much Hugo-hacking) … I’ve been really happy about it, a little stiff keyboard is all.

So the soft requirements are:

Around 13 inch screen and fairly compact
Not a Mac
Ideally a 16:10 quality screen. I may settle for 1920:1080 (my current setup), but it would be cool to have some more vertical space. Not sure I need that “Retina”
Linux friendly. I will handle some unfriendlyness if the other checkboxes ticks of.
8 gigs ram, 256 gigs SSD
Some modern Intel CPU (I’m totally happy with the current i5 I got now)
Good keyboard

Of the bullet points above, the screen is the most important.

spf13 · June 12, 2015, 10:32pm

A lot of the Docker hackers are using a Dell that natively runs Linux and checks all your other boxes.

This may be the laptop, but I’ll double check.

RickCogley · June 12, 2015, 10:35pm

Lol I’d asked this question and a dev friend told me:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-Linux/pd

RickCogley · June 12, 2015, 11:17pm

In terms of general build quality and support, my engineers tell me Dell or Lenovo.

bep · June 13, 2015, 10:43am

Thanks for the input.

The faith decided for me. Last night I dropped my laptop from 40 centimeters, landed face down on the floor.

Tried to boot it … broken screen.

I¨m in the middle of a pretty hectic project so I really need a laptop. And I´m currently in a remote place of Norway with not much to choose from …

I love Linux and have a love/hate relationship with Macs … So drum roll …

Got myself a last gen Macbook Pro 13 Retina. That screen is smashing! And that sweeping thing with Parallels and Windows is also kind of cool (I need Windows in my current project).

I will try to get used to OSX. But I might replace it with Ubuntu at some point.

nicolinuxfr · June 13, 2015, 10:49am

I think the faith has decided right !

These MacBook Pro Retina truly are great computers. Not only the screen, the battery, keyboard and trackpad are really good too.

digitalcraftsman · June 13, 2015, 12:43pm

I’m currently using my Dell XPS 13 (2015) Developer Edition as my machine if I’m on the go. And so far it’s a great machine. Long battery life and enough power under the hood. You can either choose the full hd version or the one with 3200 x 1800 pixels.

bep · June 13, 2015, 7:37pm

On a side note. I´m trying to pull off the data from my old HD. Starting the computer, choosing the correct OS, log in, open a terminal, install and enable SSH as sudo … is a though task when I have no screen (no adapters available).

I guess I have to buy myself an eSATA casing of some kind on Monday.

bep · June 13, 2015, 8:59pm

But oh-my, that retina display is fantastic. I love that it is 16:10, too … How am I going to get any real work done here is beyond me

bep · June 14, 2015, 3:47pm

All is mostly love … but … a 3 key strokes to get { and } sounds fishy to me (shift+alt+8/9) as this is maybe the most common characters in day to day use.

I guess I get used to it, but is it possible to make it easier?

pcdummy · June 14, 2015, 4:53pm

My next Laptop will be a purism as i’m a FOSS enthusiast.

RickCogley · June 14, 2015, 10:18pm

Not using myself but something like this, perhaps?
https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

zzamboni · June 17, 2015, 9:54pm

About { } - I’d say it depends on your keyboard layout. If you switch to US layout you should be able to use the regular keys, although if the keyboard is in Norwegian you may need to guess where those are

BTW I think you’ll be happy you got yourself a Macbook Pro Retina - they are really great machines (I use a 15" one), and you really can’t beat the quality of the screen (to my eyes, now any other screen looks blurry). You can install either Linux or Windows within Virtualbox and it works great. I believe it should also be really easy to install Linux natively, although I’ve never done it - I like OS X too much as a desktop system.

About getting your data off your old disk - Macs have long had “Firewire target mode”, in which the machine boots as a firewire disk which you can plug into other machines. Just a shot in the dark really, but maybe your old machine has something like that?

bep · June 18, 2015, 12:07pm

My old machine is no more … I ripped out the SSD drive (mSATA), but there isn’t anything very important in there that I do not have backup of …

And yes, the screen is really good, keyboard too … Running OSX + Windows with parallels now and I’m a happy camper. I may add Ubuntu to the mix later.

bep · June 20, 2015, 1:33pm

OK, so my old laptop had a broken screen … and a HDMI adapter I didn’t find anywhere … and no SSH server installed … and a mSATA SSD disk not easily docked.

Lo and behold; I managed to log on, open a terminal, and install and start a ssh server … in the blin. Now I can get to my data.

bep · June 24, 2015, 8:01pm

US layout is no option.

But Karabiner is a great tool.

My current setup:

github.com

bep/dotfiles/blob/master/macbook/keyRemap4MacBook/private.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>

  <!-- App Definitions -->
  <appdef>
    <appname>ITERM</appname>
    <equal>com.googlecode.iterm2</equal>
  </appdef>
  <appdef>
    <appname>TERMINAL</appname>
    <equal>com.apple.Terminal</equal>
  </appdef>

  <!-- Mappings -->
  <list>
	  <item>
		  <name>bep's Keyboard</name>
		  <appendix>The mappings below make the life as a developer with a Mac keyboard workable. This is Work In Progress.</appendix>
		  <appendix>Note: Some of the mappings below only make sense on a Norwegian keyboard.</appendix>

This file has been truncated. show original

royston · July 2, 2015, 8:12pm

High five! MBP Retina 13 are the best. Especially those with new touchpads that click everywhere.

I agree, Dell on Linux is better for coding, but if you do any design (like me), MBP is superior. Is there an Adobe Creative Suite for Linux?

bep · November 6, 2015, 7:33pm

No, and that is a pretty big thing, even for me.

To end this story: I now got 2 MBP Retinas 13 (long story).

So I thought I could experiment with my backup and install Ubuntu as the only OS. Extremely long story short: When I had it up and running I was tired. And many things just kind of worked, touchpad being one of the stuff not really there. And, even considering me having Ubuntu as my main OS for many years, it now looked and felt … pale.

I still believe that OSX UI and Linux kernel would be a killer combo, but Linux has miles to go in the UI department. And now I have Adobe PhotoShop, LIghtRoom, MS Office and Windows in Parallels. Extremely nice and compact setup.

So now I kind of understand why I see so many of these 13 inch MacBooks around the conference halls. That 13 inch retina is just perfect size to lug around.

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Off topic: Looking for a new portable laptop

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