LinuxHardware

271 readers

1 users here now

A community where you can ask questions about what hardware supports GNU/Linux, how to get things working, places to buy from (i.e. they support GNU/Linux) and so on.

Quick rules:

Be nice to each other.
Report toxic people.

EXTERNAL RESOURCES

GNU/LINUX VENDORS

OTHER VENDORS

Dell[↗] (certain lines) [Global]
Lenovo[↗] (X and T lines) [Global]
Raspberry Foundation via various vendors

Webcasts

founded 3 months ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Linux + ARM laptop: good enough for programming? Or should I get a MacBook? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm a software developer with a platform-independent stack (java / postgre / mysql / intellij / docker), I use a Linux distro. I have a workstation, but would like to be able to work away from home. Good battery life, small size, staying cool under load are the priorities; I don't need a lot of power. So I thought maybe I should try ARM?

My first idea was to get a [refurbished] MacBook Air and learn how to use MacOS, although I'd love to support something... less proprietary and more open. I've never used an ARM Linux distro or ARM laptops, and I'm not sure how good they are for my application.

What is your experience?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Refurbished ARM-based MacBook Air will be suitable as long as you get 16 or 32 GB configuration. Anything under 16 is unusable with docker, a browser, an IDE, and LSP running at the same time.

ARM-based Macs can run Linux thanks to Asahi Linux.

But I love and use Mac OS. It’s really good for development work.