I wouldn't buy a macbook for linux regardless of display. Mainstream linux window managers expect two mouse buttons. If you want an ultrabook, there's a great new Thinkpad just released made out of carbon fibre. Lenovo hardware tends to work well with linux/unix. http://gizmodo.com/5935723/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-review-...
Huh? The 90s called and they want their cliches back.
All Macs come with very capable multi touch mice or touchpads. Clicking with two fingers (or more) for secondary mouse buttons is perfectly convenient and two finger scrolling is just awesome.
Thinkpads have an understated, timeless design, superior to almost all competition, Macs included. The only distinguishing quality of Macs is their built quality - but that's not exactly a good reason to buy an ugly laptop.
Of course, most people have pretty childish tastes and prefer shiny things. But I guess de gustibus non est disputandum.
[And yes, I do feel like I have a bit too much karma... ;]
I think Nietzsche meant that either you are talking about objective known facts and there is no discussion, facts just are (or not); or, in the most common case, you are talking about subjective ideas, feelings, opinions, etc, and these are just other names for taste.
So both are right, we should not be discussing taste and we are deemed to only discuss about taste.
I'll let some other HNmate complement with a Steve Jobs quote, if they wish.
I love the TrackPoint. The first thing I do on any ThinkPad I get is disable the trackpad in the BIOS, because it's completely unnecessary when you have a TrackPoint. It's better than every other pointing instrument I've tried, including stand-alone mice (except for gaming) and trackpads (the MacBook trackpads included).
Once you get used to the TrackPoint, you'll realize what a piece of crap the MacBook trackpad is.
》Once you get used to the TrackPoint, you'll realize what a piece of crap the MacBook trackpad is
Ooooooh no you won't. Sorry Wintermute, but you're speaking from a very, very small niche market. In my experience a huge majority of people overwhelmingly prefer the mac trackpad for all conceivable uses. Two-finger scroll is a killer app.
> In my experience a huge majority of people overwhelmingly prefer the mac trackpad for all conceivable uses.
In my experience, a huge majority of people don't even know what a TrackPoint is, let alone give it a shot.
I won't deny that this is because Lenovo's advertising is nonexistent. Apple has done an excellent job over the last 5 years of convincing the general public that they have the best hardware on the market. And although I personally relish the unchanging ThinkPad design, I can see how many people would find it to be anachronistic in the 21st century.
> Two-finger scroll is a killer app.
I've had 2 finger scroll with the TrackPoint for years, and it's a lot better than the trackpad way - my right index finger moving the TrackPoint and my right thumb holding down the middle mouse button. My fingers stay on the home row, and I use my left thumb for the space bar and my right thumb stays on the mouse buttons at most times. I've tried the MacBook "two-finger scroll" method, and it just breaks my train of thought to have to move my hand back and forth from the trackpad to the keyboard.
In fact, I like the ThinkPad keyboard so much that I have the USB model for use with my desktop.
This is of course an ultimate bike-shedding topic, but I'll add my .02 anyway:
With a multi-touch extension like jiTouch that lets you configure your own per-app multi-touch gestures, the large trackpad (especially external trackpads) are no-debate the most versatile "mouse" alternative.
I have many keyboard shortcuts mapped to gestures for PyCharm, Sublime and Xcode that let me do very cool things during specific workflows (think: debugging, deployment, etc). I've only been using it (and Macs in general) since November but it's the first time i don't totally loathe having to move my hand from the keyboard.
I use a ThinkPad E520 at work. Every day. For 8 hours+.
I like the TrackPoint. I use the TrackPoint. I think I'm fairly proficient at navigating with it. But the only reason for using it, in my opinion, is because of how bad the ThinkPad's trackpad is.
I'll take my MBP's trackpad over Lenovo's trackpoint any day of the week. It's faster in most cases and much more accurate. It's just better.
You'll be happy to hear that the X1 Carbon has a new trackpad, which has been described by Notebookreview as "Oh my! Best touchpad surface ... ever!". The gizmodo reviewer: "Using the trackpad, was the first time I've ever done multitouch gestures on Windows and liked it."
As both a Linux and Mac user, I'm happy a PC manufacturer is finally getting it.
If both a trackpad and a trackpoint are available, I always use the trackpoint. I feel like I have better control with it while the trakpad makes me sloppy.
Know why that is? Because their pads are goddamn terrible. Every time I see a mac vs. pc argument it gets down to the mac user saying 'it's because of the trackpad' and the pc user saying 'I don't need no trackpad'. well.. there might be a reason for that you know.
That "terrible track pointy thing" keeps your fingers on the home row. It might not be for you but I for one like not having to constantly move from keyboard to trackpad while using my computer.
That's a little unfair. Mac's have absolutely fantastic design, so do Thinkpads. Thinkspads have that no-nonsense business aesthetic down pat, no argument about it.
But they are an equal footing in the same way a Jaguar E-Type and a Jeep are both iconic designs.
I'm not disagreeing. ThinkPads are awesome machines. But Macs have a second mouse button. Had for ages, now. Their mice still suck, though – but the trackpads are great.
That was the topic of discussion, I think. I certainly didn't mean to imply that Macs are better than ThinkPads.
>Thinkpads have an understated, timeless design, superior to almost all competition, Macs included. The only distinguishing quality of Macs is their built quality - but that's not exactly a good reason to buy an ugly laptop
A Mac is an ugly laptop? Compared to a Lenovo? In what universe?
Is there a parallel universe in which Apple laptops do not win all the design awards and are generally and widely considered the best looking by plain folks and designers alike?
I actually dual-boot Arch on my mid-2011 Macbook Pro, and two mouse buttons has been the least of my problems -- you can configure Synaptics to recognize a click on the touchpad with two fingers as a right-click, just like OS X. (You can even set it up to recognize a three-finger click as a middle click, which OS X doesn't do.)
The only real issue I have with Linux is that something keeps eating my bootloader, so I have to keep a GRUB boot CD around to boot into it.
Are you sure it's getting eaten? I have had issues with efi bootloader, where it'll forget to boot from the right OS but the bootloader is still there and accessible from the boot menu.
I don't suppose there's much motivation to write Linux mouse drivers that detect the second mouse button and/or scrolling and swipe gestures on the Apple mouses the same way Apple does.
But it's too bad, Apple went from making subpar mouses to some of the best I've ever used in the last five years or so. The trackpad is pretty great too.
Linux has been capable of driving multitouch trackpads for years (specifically the synaptic driver). Even then, it can 'fake' it on some, by detecting the width of the touch area. The main problem is all the touches must be handled in the driver, so pretty much only two finger scrolling, two finger click for right click and three finger click for middle click work. There is work going on to bring a proper multitouch api to xorg, so gestures can be used correctly.
I've played around with multitouch on Ubuntu, it does work
with some hardware (but not if the driver intercepts the touches and synthesizes something like scrollwheel events, that's bad).
I have full multitouch on this laptop, and use the two-finger scrolling and triple click that is provided by the synaptic driver everyday. The inability for programs to directly use gestures isn't great though.
I've got a Macbook 7,1 with Ubuntu 12.04 running Xmonad, and its by far the smoothest linux experience I've ever had. I ran it under Gnome Unity for a bit and that was fine too. I've never had the mouse issues you refer to. The trackpad works just as well as it did until OS X.
Not exactly, but yeah it expects you to be able to right click. It's up to the user how they wish to do that, tap with two fingers on trackpad, ctrl-tap etc.
I'm typing this on a macbook pro running Linux, and it works just fine; two-finger taps are a right-click, three for middle. That's worked on any Synaptics touchpad in Linux for at least the last seven years and probably longer.
Thanks for linking this. I've been using my GF's MBP while I look for a new laptop, and while OS X is nice, I just don't grok it. I'm an Ubuntu guy, and this looks like a good fit.
>I wouldn't buy a macbook for linux regardless of display.
You wouldn't. Linus Torvalds would --and actually did. And he says that his Macbook Air is the best laptop he ever had, and that Lenovo doesn't even come close.
I've read the interview where he says he uses an Air because it's quiet and light [1]. However I don't see him say anything about how the lenovo 'doesn't even come close'. I'm sure you're not making stuff up, so could you provide your citation? I'm interested as considering a new small dev laptop, you see.
I haven't seen any claim that the X1 will have backlit keyboard or an ambient light sensor to adjust the display. Will it? Seems a huge oversight in a laptop that is gunning for "best ever".
