To MacBook or Not to MacBook?

I think part of the question has to be to consider, what do you want to hack?

If you're interested in hacking on your computer's operating system, then you will find more flexibility with GNU/Linux or FreeBSD than with MacOS.

But if you're interested in higher-level applications -- tools, programming languages, artificial intelligence, numerical computing, etc. -- then the practical difference becomes much less.

My interests fall more at the higher level of programs, and have been happily using MacOS for most of the past 20 years.

Depends on your sensitivity to ergonomic issues as well.

Millions of people use MacBooks happily, but I personally hate them for their glossy displays, shallow keyboards and sharp palmrest edges (perhaps related to my hand size, since edges on a 14" MBP cut into my palms). MacOS also stopped having subpixel rendering, so any non-300dpi external screen (meaning all non 8k screens in existence) will show fuzzy fonts.

If you are looking for a machine to use on the go, I'd steer away from them for the above reasons.

For hacking, you also lose much of the access to internals too, or when you don't, it's way harder to get it than on a GNU/Linux system.

> which makes it difficult to learn how to hack

This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s true that you can’t rebuild the kernel or os services, or modify the system very much at all so if that is the kind of hacking you want to learn, then you shouldn’t use a Mac.

However, if by ‘learn to hack’ you mean ‘learn to code applications and services’, then Macs are great. You can learn both Apple’s proprietary stuff and all of the significant open source tooling and languages.

Love this generation of MacBooks. I used to rice my Linux installs every few months and switch distros or wms and setup new servers. Now I just open my laptop and have at it.

My only suggestion is that you do try Linux a good amount. This can be for a variety of things and even doing this in a VM is good. Get used to the command line and understand how the system purrs.

I started this with Arch and their wiki. Their wiki is great in general even for non-Arch Linux. You could go the hardcore route and do Linux From Scratch on a VM. Or play around with a Raspberry Pi. Or buy an old Lenovo to run something on.

But otherwise my personal preference for a $2K-$4K machine is to get something I can rely on and with an easy repair path. Many won’t agree but Mac fits that book for me.

FWIW, Asahi Linux is making nice progress on Apple Silicon support: https://asahilinux.org/2022/07/july-2022-release/

> If you suggest running a Linux VM through UTM on the M1 Macs, I will counter by stating that you can only run ARM ISOs…

I think that's incorrect. From the UTM home page: "On Intel Macs, x86/x64 operating system can be virtualized. In addition, lower performance emulation is available to run x86/x64 on Apple Silicon as well as ARM64 on Intel."

In my experience hacking Linux on laptops can be a painful experience. WiFi, ACPI, GPU, etc can all be a source of pain and wasted effort. I'd much rather use a desktop and with BSD unless you have specific need to use Linux.

As a further issue with hacking, I find it best to use sacrificial desktop(s) and maintain a separate desktop for all core and admin work. There's no point in breaking my production system* because I've tried something new.

Most of my sacrificial systems are either my older systems or systems I've rescued from clients' dumpsters.

Linux is the better OS for hackers —- consider System76 and Franework Laptops.

The biggest downside of not having a Mac is that it prevents you from writing iOS/MacOS apps.

Really depends what you're after. I personally have stuck with mac for the last 5 years for ease of use and build quality. After working on mining rigs, I really value all-in-one to avoid dealing with configuration issues and the like. If you're looking for that fine tuned granular control though, then mac won't ever satisfy.

the point of running linux is that it forces you to learn about linux. knowledge of linux pays dividends forever.

knowledge of macos is fine, but does not pay dividends.

CORRECTION: You can run x86/x64 operating systems via lower performance emulation on M1 Macs on UTM.

Thank you everyone for your input!