The reason I ask is fairly simple. It's a switch which seems to make sense the more I think about it.
I currently have an average personal laptop which I abuse when coding. It only has 8GB RAM, and I use most of it often. Had the whole thing freeze a few times this week.
I use Ubuntu day-to-day, but the available devices with it installed are too small for me (all 13") and are limited to 16GB RAM.
I'm considering a MacBook Pro (16"), a It's not Windows. It's got a great spec, and should last a while. Problem is, I've never been an Apple guy.
Top comments (6)
I bought a 16" MBP this February after rocking a Dell laptop with Ubuntu for 5 years. It even had 8GB of RAM just like yours so I relate a lot. But I also had worked with MacBooks in the past so this wasn't my first Apple experience.
That being said, I find the Ubuntu experience much closer to macOS than to Windows, both UI-wise and development-wise. With
brewyou have a decent package manager much likeaptand, at least for webdev, there isn't anything I could do with Ubuntu that I can't on a mac.Is there anything in particular that you believe you'd have trouble with?
I'm a little concerned I'd struggle with the the shortcuts (I'm a massive shortcut user within my IDEs) and the general UI - the icons at the bottom and the bizarre (from my perspective) rolodex enlargement (does it pop-up at times you don't expect it to and get in the way?). Aside from that - how much control is there? I know Apple are renowned for locking down their devices, but with Ubuntu (and the help of
sudo) I can brick the device if i wanted to. I'm assuming Apple's Unix base allows for similar control.I think, like anything, there would be a learning curve, and I am fine with that. But I know I would be spending a lot of money on it.
Oddly, the part I am least worried about is software compatibility. My IDEs all work on Mac (all tutorials show them working on Mac). Web browsers work on it, and I'd probably even get back into photography knowing I can run Lightroom.
I used Windows for many years before I started software development full time. Then I used Linux (lots of different flavours, including Ubuntu). I love Linux but I never liked the PC hardware.
About 10 years ago, I bought a crappy secondhand clamshell 13" Macbook on ebay. It barely worked but once I upgraded the RAM and put in an SSD (remember when we could mod Apple computers??), it worked surprisingly well.
More recently, I upgraded to a new Macbook pro.
The thing about the switch is that it takes time to get used to. I realised everyone thinks their way (or OS) is the best but it's mostly because that's what you're used to.
I do find that on Macs, things just work. What used to be fun for me on Linux (messing about with drivers and recompiling the kernel every other week) became tedious when I needed to just get work done. I think Macs still rule in this regard.
The hardware quality is still the best (even with the annoying new keyboards). The displays are fantastic.
I'd suggest you give it a go, keeping in mind that it is a big investment and it might take a few months before you get used to it.
I currently use a 2017 13" MBP because I got it off Craigslist for $1000 when it was 1 year old back in 2018.
My desktop is running Fedora 31 and shares the same dotfiles / environment with my laptop.
I do web development / game development so in terms of development experience I would say the transition is fairly minimal.
That being said, I think I'm not a great MacOS user as my friends always show me integrations with other hardware / software on their mac that I never use because I don't own any other Apple hardware.
I don't own any other Apple hardware. I have no plans to, either. I'd simply have a MBP, and leave everything else as it is. Well, I might need a new printer. Mine is about 15 years old and isn't supported by anyone anymore (but works under Ubuntu with a bit of creativity)
I have a HP laptop. It's another average personal laptop with 8GB Ram and it runs Pop OS Linux Distro. It stutters sometimes but i've learned how to deal with it. Having to close apps to manage the ram and system performance.
But at work, i have the 2013 MBP. It works really well. It was one of the last upgradable macs from apple and it gets the job done really well. The transition was really easy. I was able to do everything i could do in linux on a mac. The only frustration i had was with the keyboard - i keep messing up the ctrl and command thing from time to time, after working on mac at work for 8 hours, i come back home and keep pressing the alt + c because thats where the command key was on the mac. Plus, The gestures are awesome in a mac ! Go for the upgrade. It is well worth it.