#DaveGoesLinux - Part 0

A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to put my trusty 2017 13” MacBook Pro (MBP) out to pasture.

I first bought this MacBook to be my work machine when I left a job to go freelance back in, you guessed it, 2017. It was the model which was fraught with issues - in particular a keyboard which was prone to dust invasion which would cause keys to double type or not work entirely. I was particularly lucky in that it didn’t impact me until late last year.

The main issue I have with this laptop is that the battery is shot. It doesn’t hold any kind of charge, and only runs off a charger if I use a higher wattage one than the 67W charger it was sold with. That comes with the obvious issue that the laptop is no longer mobile, but also I have recently learned that macOS throttles at low charge levels. This means the computer is basically unusable for the first five minutes after turning it on.

I do have two other computers

• A Dell XPS laptop running Windows 11, issued by my employer, which I use for 8+ hours a day
• A self-built “gaming PC” also running Windows 11

So my MBP has mainly been used for casual web browsing, personal coding and the odd web project.

The replacement

As is fairly normal with me, being a nerd, I fell down a research rabbit hole in looking for a replacement. I knew I wasn’t going down the Mac route again - with both of my other daily use computers being Windows based. And also modern MacBooks aren’t user serviceable (more on that later).

I ended up watching a lot of YouTube content on user serviceable laptops, and was originally airing towards a Framework 13” - but the rising cost of computer components due to the AI boom bubble, made it very difficult to justify for a “hobby” device.

This is where I started looking into used laptops, refurbishment, and generally saving perfectly good computers from becoming e-waste.

For those who don’t know, Microsoft have ended support for Windows 10, and a lot of otherwise capable devices don’t meet the upgrade requirements for Windows 11. That means a huge number of still-functional machines are being retired, recycled, or thrown away entirely.

So I started digging into what the best, most robust PC laptops in this category were — and it turns out the Lenovo ThinkPad has a bit of a reputation for longevity and repairability.

Naturally, once you start watching ThinkPad repair videos on YouTube, the algorithm begins gently nudging you towards Right to Repair content… and then Linux… and then more Linux.

At some point along the way, I’d decided I wasn’t going to buy new if I could help it. And maybe it was time to decorporatise (probably not a real word) a bit — and move towards something without licences, telemetry, and the usual pre-installed bloat.

I was going Free and Open Source (FOSS).

What I eventually ended up ordering, was a ThinkPad T14 Gen 2 (Intel) from 2021 off of eBay. I was tempted to join the absolute meme of a ThinkPad T480 (IYKYK), but they are older and just as expensive, albeit way more customisable and repairable.

At the time I started writing this post, it is still in transit, and I cannot wait for it to arrive.

Why Linux?

Whilst these older machines are obsolete as far as Microsoft are concerned - they are absolutely viable, and Linux supports them and can breathe new life into any hardware you can think of.

I decided pretty early on in this process that Windows 11 wouldn’t be going on my next machine. It is bloated, clumsy, and sends so much telemetry back to the mothership. Not to mention MS are shoehoring their AI product - Copilot - into everything. And don’t get me started on Windows Recall, a service which takes regular screen grabs and unless you explicitly turn it off, sends it back to Microsoft for “AI analysis”. Ick.

So in going down the route of an older PC Laptop, Linux was really my only option, and an exciting one for someone who has lost his love of the walled gardens of the big two (MacOS and Windows).

I am essentially a Linux user by default now anyway. Both of my primary machines are running Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) - to allow me to have “unix-like”/“mac-like” development experience. The projects I work on live in Docker Containers which are spun up via WSL. I even instantiate VS Code, my code editor of choice (for now) via code . from the root of the project on my WSL instance.

I’m also not a Linux newbie anyway. I have dabbled with various flavours of it over the past 25 years, but it always had too many annoyances to keep me back then.

So, in theory, the transitions shouldn’t be a shock to the system. Unlike a lot of Windows users currently in the wave of making the shift, I am happy in the command line.

Where I can foresee issues however, having done a trial run on Fedora Linux on my MacBook, is hardware compatibility. Whilst I have chosen a laptop which has amazing hardware support (unlike the MacBook, which held on to Wi-Fi connection like a 90s England Cricketer held catches) - there will still be some foibles and edge cases.

Likewise, there will likely be some FOSS software equivalent which doesn’t measure up to their corporate counterparts, image editing is a large one here although I haven’t used Photoshop in anger in years. More on which software I choose to use in future parts/updates.

So which Distribution (Distro)

I really liked Fedora, particularly with the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment, when I trialled it on my MacBook.

But I have also been swallowed up by the hype of CachyOS, a super fast derivative of the Arch Distro (btw) - this is where I am leaning towards at the moment.

I had also entertained the idea of Ubuntu, but that is owned and run by a corporation (as is Fedora) - and by online accounts is getting quite bloated and opinionated too.

There is also Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, but is hailed as the perfect distro for Windows switchers. I have tried this out on my gaming PC before.

Anyway. That is the intro to #DaveGoesLinux. I’ll hopefully be back pretty soon with my summary of my first few days on whichever Linux flavour I choose (assuming the laptop is delivered soon and isn’t a house brick in a box)