how easy would it be to set it up for dual boot win7/linux?
how good/bad would it run a virtualization of linux?
Trivial to setup. It's one of the most Linux compatible laptops around. You can use VirtualBox in Windows to run Linux or you can use it in Linux to run Windows, and it will be equally good either way.
My X220 arrives today. I'll let you know tomorrow?
On my X201 I run VirtualBox. If it's full screen it runs so smoothly you wouldn't even know it was a VM unless you tried to do 3D or something like that. X220 can only be better.
My X220 arrives today. I'll let you know tomorrow?
On my X201 I run VirtualBox. If it's full screen it runs so smoothly you wouldn't even know it was a VM unless you tried to do 3D or something like that. X220 can only be better.
Oh, I know. I meant I could tell him my opinions of the PC as a whole.
My X220 arrives today. I'll let you know tomorrow?
I heard that pokemon is for children
Then I am a man who likes childish things. But that doesn't change the fact that in two hours I'll have a Lenovo X220.
Seriously, I don't know why you keep going back to this.
A real life friend of mine said you freaked out when he said that to you, so I guess you could say that I am lightly trolling you.
Oh yeah, I remember that. Searching for what I said, I believe my statement was, "Are you saying that Pokemon is a game for kids, and no one else, or that if you play it you're immature?" Not really a freak out, just a facetious question. Your friend should work on figuring out when someone is joking.
X220 arrived while I was typing this. Haven't done installs yet, but she's beautiful, that's for sure.
One point in favor of a MacBook is the build quality, the aluminum body feels sturdy and looks nice, like the OS, if that matters to you. Also, the trackpads are wonderful, as in, they feel great and do what you want them to, when you stay within OS X land, in Bootcamp/Windows they are kinda clunky.
If those things don't matter to you, and/or you don't have an OS X only app, like Coda, you can probably go with Windows/Linux.
Mac OS will spoil you with dylibs and bundles instead of DLLs and SOs all in a search path.
Look for something that has a decent shell and development tools. Windows can qualify if you install GVim and MSYS, but Windows is a nonstandard development environment for pretty much everything except for MS Visual C(not real C) Java and .Net, IMO.
And what Jain7th said: I've dented up my MacBook Pro a bit by dropping it, once from about five feet off the ground onto linoleum. It took a chunk out of the floor and that corner is a little bent, but the computer is fine. Never set your computer on top of boxes and then try to carry those boxes through an aggressive self-closing door.
How so? No other UNIX system in the world uses that system. Are you using OSX servers? Nobody uses OSX servers. Why in the world would it be better to use some weird ass system on your development box that is completely different from every production environment? What possible benefit could there be?
Homebrew has about everything, I think.
Not even remotely close. Sunday when I have some free time I'll run a count of the packages in Fedora/Ubuntu vs. the number of Homebrew formulae. My bet is that the Linux distros will beat it by an order of magnitude at least.
Mac OS will spoil you with dylibs and bundles instead of DLLs and SOs all in a search path.
What the fuck is that shit? No modern Linux distribution has any problems with dynamic libraries or library paths whatsoever.
Look for something that has a decent shell and development tools. Windows can qualify if you install GVim and MSYS, but Windows is a nonstandard development environment for pretty much everything except for MS Visual C(not real C) Java and .Net, IMO.
Windows is a non-standard development environment for anything that isn't done in an IDE such as Arduino, Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc. The point is that running Linux in the absolutely free VirtualBox on Windows is effectively perfect. On Mac to virtualize Linux without pain requires paying cash money for Parallels. You can dual boot either way, but Linux running directly on a PC will be perfect. Directly on Mac hardware is better than it used to be, but is still flaky and painful.
And what Jain7th said: I've dented up my MacBook Pro a bit by dropping it, once from about five feet off the ground onto linoleum. It took a chunk out of the floor and that corner is a little bent, but the computer is fine. Never set your computer on top of boxes and then try to carry those boxes through an aggressive self-closing door.
Your problem si taht you are dropping your computer. What the fuck is wrong with people? Take care of your shit! Especially take care of your multi-thousand dollar shit! I have had two iPhones, both completely naked of any shield or protection, not even a screen scratch. Yet, I see other people with kevlar armor and shattered screens. Even in situations like infamous Nintendo DS hinge, I never had a problem. Durability is nice, but it doesn't outweigh the fact that the actual computer is worse. Covering a worse computer in armor doesn't make it better than a better computer wrapped in cloth.
Covering a worse computer in armor doesn't make it better than a better computer wrapped in cloth.
Why is it worse? It works well for me the majority of the time, when I use Illustrator, Coda, Chrome, Cinema 4D etc and with Bootcamp it plays games alright, Portal 2 ran perfectly with medium settings in the native 1680x1050 resolution. And it has a big, working trackpad as opposed to the ugly, confusing mess that sits on top of Thinkpads, at least in my opinion.
I have a plastic MacBook. I was on a flight with bad turbulence. The turbulence was so bad it broke the plastic body. Now I have a monobody aluminium MacBook Pro, and I'm waaaay more confident it will survive my travels than any plastic laptop.
For all the reasons I've been saying in this thread. Would you like to hear some more?
And it has a big, working trackpad as opposed to the ugly, confusing mess that sits on top of Thinkpads, at least in my opinion.
There is absolutely no doubt the Mac trackpad is vastly superior to all others. If I were a PC manufacturer I would be doing everything possible to duplicate it, or somehow improve upon it. What's even more shameful is when you get something like the Google Cr-48 which has a ludicrously shitty trackpad. It's not even half as good as the completely average trackpad on my ThinkPad.
The thing is, the greatness of the trackpad illustrates yet another problem with OSX. If you are a developer, you should hardly ever be touching the mouse, so it should matter less if the mouse is good or not. OSX is so mouse intensive compared to the other two major OSes, that you can't avoid the trackpad. You are saved great pain because the trackpad is so good, but there is still pain from having to leave the keyboard much more often.
That reminds me of another problem with OSX. Yet, it has keyboard shortcuts for many things, but its keyboard shortcuts are all fucked up. Yes, it lets you customize keyboard shortcuts, but that is also broken.
Any keyboard person who doesn't have a happy hacking keyboard will turn their caps lock key into a ctrl key. In Linux or Mac that's trivial to do . In Windows you have to edit a registry key to do it. That might seem like a point against Windows. Well, it is and it isn't.
What is the keyboard shortcut to clear the bash shell in a terminal? It's ctrl+l on all systems. What is the keyboard shortcut for a new tab in Firefox/Chrome? On Linux and Windows it's ctrl+t. On OSX it's fucking cmd+t. Every system besides OSX uses ctrl for all of the frequent keyboard shortcuts. Thus, turning caps lock into control means you can always use that big old former caps lock button for almost everything. On OSX everything uses cmd instead, except for the UNIXY things which are unchanged. Half the shortcuts use one button and half use the other. I've used OSX so long at work that I subconsciously switch depending on what computer I'm using, but that doesn't make it less wrong.
Ok, so OSX lets you customize all keyboard shortcuts. Anyone with a Mac, I want you to try this. Go to the system preferences. Find the keyboard shortcut customizer. Change the Firefox new tab keyboard shortcut to ctrl+t instead of cmd+t. Restart Firefox. Press ctrl+t. See what happens? The menu bar lights up as it has recognized the keyboard shortcut, so it must be working. But, what's this? No new tab actually appears. That shit don't work.
And that is yet another fundamental philosophical problem with OSX. They try to make it easy for normal people by hiding everything that is under the hood. When things work, it takes a load off of your mind. When things don't work, you have no information to go on and everything is non-standard and different from every other UNIX system. If you're a normal person you might not mind buying a card with the hood welded shut, or a car with weird non-standard parts. You're happy to let the dealer service it. But any self respecting mechanic or car enthusiast is going to stay far away form that shit. A Mac is a computer that is shut with weird parts that only the dealer can service. Anyone who works under the hood of computers will stay far away from it whenever necessary.
Oh, and chiclet keyboards are an abomination and should all die in a fire.
For all the reasons I've been saying in this thread. Would you like to hear some more?Oh, in this thread you're mostly talking about software, and your comment seemed to refer to the hardware.
And just in case somepony didn't believe this worked.
Um, isn't that common knowledge? There are pre-build VM images, hackintosh disks and ways to circumvent the roadblocks set up by Apple and VMWare or in this case Virtualbox.
Oh, in this thread you're mostly talking about software, and your comment seemed to refer to the hardware.
The main thing that makes Mac hardware inferior is pricing. You can get a vastly more powerful machine for a lot less money.
Um, isn't that common knowledge? There are pre-build VM images, hackintosh disks and ways to circumvent the roadblocks set up by Apple and VMWare or in this case Virtualbox.
I didn't do any hacking for this. I just booted a clean VirtualBox from an actual OSX DVD.
Um, isn't that common knowledge? There are pre-build VM images, hackintosh disks and ways to circumvent the roadblocks set up by Apple and VMWare or in this case Virtualbox.
I didn't do any hacking for this. I just booted a clean VirtualBox from an actual OSX DVD.
Wow, that's seriously cool. When/how did this become possible? Or did Apple just never get around to making sure that Virtualbox couldn't run OS X.
I have one question for Bruce. Tell me where I can get non-personal computers. Other than that, the advice has already been given. Get a (sub-)$500 laptop with Windows (7) OEM, buy a copy of the latest Mac OS, and download a Live CD for whatever Linux distro you want to run. Cheapest, easiest and best solution.
Wow, that's seriously cool. When/how did this become possible? Or did Apple just never get around to making sure that Virtualbox couldn't run OS X.
VirtualBox added EFI a little while before Oracle bought Sun. I made it work on that initial version that added the feature. It's worked ever since.
Did you do it on a Mac or on a PC? Supposedly you can't boot unmodified OS X on a VirtualBox running on a PC due to some sort of hardware-level DRM on the Mac.
Comments
Seriously, I don't know why you keep going back to this.
X220 arrived while I was typing this. Haven't done installs yet, but she's beautiful, that's for sure.
dolce et decorum est pro pc mori!
Use ius tool pro officium
Thank you Google translate.
Also, the trackpads are wonderful, as in, they feel great and do what you want them to, when you stay within OS X land, in Bootcamp/Windows they are kinda clunky.
If those things don't matter to you, and/or you don't have an OS X only app, like Coda, you can probably go with Windows/Linux.
Homebrew has about everything, I think.
Mac OS will spoil you with dylibs and bundles instead of DLLs and SOs all in a search path.
Look for something that has a decent shell and development tools. Windows can qualify if you install GVim and MSYS, but Windows is a nonstandard development environment for pretty much everything except for MS Visual C(not real C) Java and .Net, IMO.
And what Jain7th said: I've dented up my MacBook Pro a bit by dropping it, once from about five feet off the ground onto linoleum. It took a chunk out of the floor and that corner is a little bent, but the computer is fine. Never set your computer on top of boxes and then try to carry those boxes through an aggressive self-closing door.
And it has a big, working trackpad as opposed to the ugly, confusing mess that sits on top of Thinkpads, at least in my opinion.
The thing is, the greatness of the trackpad illustrates yet another problem with OSX. If you are a developer, you should hardly ever be touching the mouse, so it should matter less if the mouse is good or not. OSX is so mouse intensive compared to the other two major OSes, that you can't avoid the trackpad. You are saved great pain because the trackpad is so good, but there is still pain from having to leave the keyboard much more often.
That reminds me of another problem with OSX. Yet, it has keyboard shortcuts for many things, but its keyboard shortcuts are all fucked up. Yes, it lets you customize keyboard shortcuts, but that is also broken.
Any keyboard person who doesn't have a happy hacking keyboard will turn their caps lock key into a ctrl key. In Linux or Mac that's trivial to do . In Windows you have to edit a registry key to do it. That might seem like a point against Windows. Well, it is and it isn't.
What is the keyboard shortcut to clear the bash shell in a terminal? It's ctrl+l on all systems. What is the keyboard shortcut for a new tab in Firefox/Chrome? On Linux and Windows it's ctrl+t. On OSX it's fucking cmd+t. Every system besides OSX uses ctrl for all of the frequent keyboard shortcuts. Thus, turning caps lock into control means you can always use that big old former caps lock button for almost everything. On OSX everything uses cmd instead, except for the UNIXY things which are unchanged. Half the shortcuts use one button and half use the other. I've used OSX so long at work that I subconsciously switch depending on what computer I'm using, but that doesn't make it less wrong.
Ok, so OSX lets you customize all keyboard shortcuts. Anyone with a Mac, I want you to try this. Go to the system preferences. Find the keyboard shortcut customizer. Change the Firefox new tab keyboard shortcut to ctrl+t instead of cmd+t. Restart Firefox. Press ctrl+t. See what happens? The menu bar lights up as it has recognized the keyboard shortcut, so it must be working. But, what's this? No new tab actually appears. That shit don't work.
And that is yet another fundamental philosophical problem with OSX. They try to make it easy for normal people by hiding everything that is under the hood. When things work, it takes a load off of your mind. When things don't work, you have no information to go on and everything is non-standard and different from every other UNIX system. If you're a normal person you might not mind buying a card with the hood welded shut, or a car with weird non-standard parts. You're happy to let the dealer service it. But any self respecting mechanic or car enthusiast is going to stay far away form that shit. A Mac is a computer that is shut with weird parts that only the dealer can service. Anyone who works under the hood of computers will stay far away from it whenever necessary.
Oh, and chiclet keyboards are an abomination and should all die in a fire.