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by thunderbong·7y ago·view on hn ↗
You could say the same thing about Apple as a dev environment, isn't it? Most of the devs I see working on Apple systems are primarily using the terminal. And this is back from the ruby dev days. In all the conferences, in all the presentations they would open a terminal and demonstrate their software.

And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal. Why couldn't they install Linux on way more powerful hardware at a fraction of the cost.

And now that Microsoft is doing it I see all these comments about Windows being a shell on Linux!

The hypocrisy is sickening.

Honestly, the engineering innovations that Microsoft is showing is head and shoulders above anything that Apple had ever done for developers.

Give credit where its due.

2 comments
> And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal. Why couldn't they install Linux on way more powerful hardware at a fraction of the cost.

It's less about the power of the hardware, and more about support. A top end 13" Macbook Pro is $2000 for an i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD a passable integrated GPU and 2280x1800 resolution.

A Dell xps 13 "developer edition" comes to just shy of $1700 with very very similar specs and a similar build quality, which is the same ballpark. People aren't buying macbooks because they're expensive, they're buying them because the hardware support is (well, was) good, the software is good, they work together, and there's a fallback.

Install any linux distro on a HP laptop for a third of the price, and see how far you get in terms of support.

> And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal.

But it was a nice terminal! On a more serious note: The cost of purchasing an Apple laptop is dwarfed by the cost of selecting a set of hardware that works with Linux. I did switch from Apple to Linux in one of the last iterations and despite using a Thinkpad, the time I sink into making sure that my machine works, does a proper backup that I can restore, ... is higher than the one-time price difference to a nice Apple laptop. Their hardware is good for years, it’s usually working pretty well. It comes with a price tag, true, but so does maintenance for a Linux machine.

I genuinely don't understand this Linux incompatibility thing, people always make the point and I never know what they're talking about. I've always just bought an arbitrary laptop, installed Ubuntu on it and it's just run. What hardware problems are you referring to?
Fingerprint sensor, UMTS Modem, HiDPI Screens, especially mixed with regular screens, there were issues with low cpu power states or so on the recent carbon X1, my desktop sometimes locks up when the laptop is docked with external screens connected and only unlocks when I undock (it doesn’t crash, it seems to be incapable of placing a window, once I undock and redock everything is fine).

Sure, it runs: it boots and displays an image. It’s still much more work to make it work as smooth as an apple laptop.

Running Linux comes with some advantages and obviously the trade off work for me in the current circumstances, but it could also fall the other way.

Thanks, so it's kind of specific CPU stuff and "advanced" peripherals. I get what people are talking about now.