- I’ll buy used, so don’t want latest and greatest. It won’t be my main laptop.
- to run linux obviously.
- good battery life, light, not too small to use, but large enough to type on (obviously can do without numeric keypad). not too fragile!
- I’ll be doing some light python work, perhaps some c/c++ but I’m not after a workhorse, just something for quickly fixing bugs, or making notes on
- sub 200 GBP / 250USD I guess
I’d be interested in hearing recommendations, and also what to avoid!
As much as I want to agree with this (I have a 2018 MacBook Pro that is running t2linux), this is a horrible suggestion.
Sure, if that’s the only computer (or laptop) you already have, go for it, but Linux on Mac, at least via the t2linux project is currently shaky at best. It does work, but absolutely not as a daily driver in my opinion.
Suspend is completely broken, the touchpad is barely usable, performance is horrible, audio quality is horrible, Bluetooth is unusable, battery life is abysmal.
And that’s not even mentioning the challenges you face installing it on your MacBook; firmware hacks, keyboard not working, etc.
DO NOT buy a MacBook specifically to run Linux on it if it’s going to be your daily driver. You will have a horrible time. Buy something more suited like a thinkpad.
Sucks to hear your experience being so terrible. Either I’m so coloured by the hellish experience of booting Linux on a surface (which is easy, but so many small issues after each update) or booting Linux on a mac is really easy.
BUT
I do agree, get something like a system76 for ease of use. I have dabbled with Linux, custom roms and other “hacky” stuff my whole life. I’m so used to it being hard that the experience these days feels as easy as booting windows