The Shape of Code

I have been using the same MacBook Pro for almost nine years; yes, I’m a sporadic user of laptops, much preferring to work on a decent desktop system. I’ve had zero hardware problems, and have often been able to install programs (often by compiling from source) from the weird and wonderful ecosystems I frequent. Performance does seem to have gotten slower with every OS upgrade (it ‘only’ has 8G of memory). I’m very happy with the eight years of software support provided by Apple; while I’m usually happy to stay with older versions of software, package vendors eventually stop supporting them, ‘forcing’ me to upgrade.

My decision about which laptop to buy next is software driven: Over the next, say, five years which of Apple’s OS X or Linux is most likely to best support the software ecosystems containing the kind of programs I am going to want to run (given a Windows laptop, my first action would be to install the Linux subsystem)?

Diehard Mac fans complain that Apple has lost its way, with regard to Mac upgrades; this does not bother me too much. I am more concerned with the increasing number of features that smack of a walled garden approach to software that is permitted to run on Apple hardware.

My need for a new laptop has not been urgent, and for the last 18-months I have been keeping an eye out for the hardware options that are available for a laptop running Linux.

The most obvious option is buying a Windows laptop from a major supplier, and doing a clean Linux installation; yes, some larger suppliers offer laptops with Linux preinstalled.

About a year ago, I saw a review for the StarBook, which is essentially a hackers’ 14″ laptop built by a bunch of hackers for a living. The hardware specs looked good, with plenty of upgrade options, and choice of preinstalled Linux distribution. While I continue to build desktop systems, I don’t plan to get involved with laptop hardware; however, it’s good to see that Starlab Systems publish complete disassembly instructions.

Around a month ago I finally had had enough with my sluggish MacBook and ordered a StarBook (32G memory, 960G SSD). I initially specified Ubuntu as the installed distribution, but on learning that some Ubuntu tools now produced promotional messages, I switched to Linux Mint.

The StarBook arrived a couple of weeks ago, and is certainly a lot faster than my 2013 MacBook (Geekbench cpu results). There has been the usual period of installing packages and configuring the system (I have yet to spend the time need to figure out how to get Cinnamon (the desktop environment) to save/restore the terminal windows across shutdown (the one OSX feature I miss).

All being well, I may be writing again about my new laptop in 2032.

My MacBook, StarBook and Samsung 32-inch curved monitor. While the laptops have very similar length/width, the screen size of the StarBook is 1-inch greater.