I work at a big tech company in Silicon Valley and maybe 80% of employees use MacBooks… I was using Windows for a while, but I switched to Linux around a year ago. AFAIK there were only a few dozen people like me (running Linux, using Firefox as default browser) until we were all forced to switch to Chrome because of some security features in Chrome enterprise.
Its okay for a lot of things. And its great for people who don’t expect much. But for power users, the moment you start installing stuffs for QoL or for more functionality, its there and then (the lack of RAM) really makes one want to bite the fingernails. I’m running 24GB, but even then my memory pressure is on yellow and i’ve “offloaded” a lot of stuffs into Ferdium (as that was the only reasonable way of maintaining certain things).
But for those who use on the web stuffs for almost everything, a macbook is a much better chromebook, and it works really well for those who don’t want to fiddle with anything.
But that price though. If Macbooks were priced lower (especially the RAM and storage upgrades) I think there will be a huge uptick of people buying the M-CPU Macbooks.
Agreed. I got the 16/512 (max specs) M1 Air for a decent price for the performance and battery life, and I currently run Linux on it, but I’m constantly bottlenecking both the RAM and SSD and it sucks that I can’t upgrade it, will probably get a Framework when it dies
What Linux do you run and is it great? Now you are making me think I should plonk more money into a macbook once this macbook is too old and run both Mac OS and Linux.
Framework is a great hardware. I like their vision.
Number of reasons.
Works well with Apple products, long battery life, way more powerful for most normal (sometimes applies to even some basic UI devs and small project video editing).
It’s got great hardware. However Apple is a nightmare capitalist company that’ll try to dime and nickel you for every possible thing.
Unified memory. On a current gen Mac work station you can functionally have 512GB of VRAM for AI tasks for under $10k. Good luck getting anywhere close with Nvidia or AMD.
They’re also idiot proof, when I fuck up my CUDA drivers sending me down a 4-hour-long hunt for improperly installed visual studio files, a part of me is envious of Mac owners who will never know my pain.
Real reason right here. They want a machine that essentially protects them from themselves. It’s also why Chromebooks are so wildly popular in US schools; the kids can’t fuck up the software.
I honestly will never understand why people buy macbooks.
Out here in Silicon Valley, the big driver is a) you need MacOS to develop for iOS, and b) people prefer the UX over Windows / Linux.
Also, the hardware tends be well supported and performant for many years…. As long as you’re not gaming.
I work at a big tech company in Silicon Valley and maybe 80% of employees use MacBooks… I was using Windows for a while, but I switched to Linux around a year ago. AFAIK there were only a few dozen people like me (running Linux, using Firefox as default browser) until we were all forced to switch to Chrome because of some security features in Chrome enterprise.
It’s UNIX with a million and one creature comforts and high build quality. The ThinkPad touchpad gives me a rash.
Audio editing tools. I love linux but… its still catching up
Disclaimer: Macbook user here.
Its okay for a lot of things. And its great for people who don’t expect much. But for power users, the moment you start installing stuffs for QoL or for more functionality, its there and then (the lack of RAM) really makes one want to bite the fingernails. I’m running 24GB, but even then my memory pressure is on yellow and i’ve “offloaded” a lot of stuffs into Ferdium (as that was the only reasonable way of maintaining certain things).
But for those who use on the web stuffs for almost everything, a macbook is a much better chromebook, and it works really well for those who don’t want to fiddle with anything.
But that price though. If Macbooks were priced lower (especially the RAM and storage upgrades) I think there will be a huge uptick of people buying the M-CPU Macbooks.
Agreed. I got the 16/512 (max specs) M1 Air for a decent price for the performance and battery life, and I currently run Linux on it, but I’m constantly bottlenecking both the RAM and SSD and it sucks that I can’t upgrade it, will probably get a Framework when it dies
What Linux do you run and is it great? Now you are making me think I should plonk more money into a macbook once this macbook is too old and run both Mac OS and Linux.
Framework is a great hardware. I like their vision.
Great battery life on macOS, although turns out a lot of it involves software-related optimizations since with Asahi Linux it’s barely better than x86
You must not have any tech illiterate old family that likes downloading sketchy stuff from the Internet.
Number of reasons. Works well with Apple products, long battery life, way more powerful for most normal (sometimes applies to even some basic UI devs and small project video editing). It’s got great hardware. However Apple is a nightmare capitalist company that’ll try to dime and nickel you for every possible thing.
Unified memory. On a current gen Mac work station you can functionally have 512GB of VRAM for AI tasks for under $10k. Good luck getting anywhere close with Nvidia or AMD.
They’re also idiot proof, when I fuck up my CUDA drivers sending me down a 4-hour-long hunt for improperly installed visual studio files, a part of me is envious of Mac owners who will never know my pain.
People pay for the simplicity.
Real reason right here. They want a machine that essentially protects them from themselves. It’s also why Chromebooks are so wildly popular in US schools; the kids can’t fuck up the software.
Honestly, I’d love a cost equivalent laptop in could put Linux on in Europe, but for the money the MacBook Air is just really hard to beat