I have no control over what operating system I use for work. Well technically that’s incorrect, I do have a choice but I’d spend half of my time in a Windows VM to use specific applications and troubleshooting. So doing so would make my life unnecessarily difficult.
I do however have a choice over what operating system I use at home. Currently my powerful PC runs ubuntu. It works seamlessly with any Android dev stuff I’m doing, and gaming works surprisingly well either using Steam proton, or Lutrix/Wine. I generally get just as good performance as I do on a Windows mahcine, and emulators generally work even better. However this article isn’t about that machine. It’s about my general use machine.
I have a secondary PC at my desk, and a KVM. The secondary machine is currently a Lenovo SFF PC running a LTSC version of Windows 10. I absolutely detest Windows 11 and couldn’t bring myself to use it in my own time. Even Windows 10 has changed into something unrecognisable from when it first released. The confusion between “Settings” and the traditional control panel is infuriating. The telemetry has been gradually increasing. The integrated bloatware is unavoidable and the constant notifications drive me mad. I generally get about a year out of a Windows installation before issues start occuring, be that random driver problems, system slowdowns, strange amounts of space becoming unaccounted for a number of other problems.
As an IT professional the last thing I want to be doing when I get home is diagnosing problems. I want a system that works long term, without fuss and to have faith that when I press that power button the system is going to start without fault. Unfortunately my main PC fails on that requirement list because being Linux nothing aside from installing apps from the default repository is straight forward; config files need editing, research needs to be done for almost everything and niche software generally doesn’t have a linux version meaning either workarounds are needed or it simply can’t be ran. The Lenovo fails on the reliability, Windows will do updates at the most inconvenient times that cannot be postponed, and the system can have a fault at seemingly any time.
This has left me thinking about Macs again. I’ve owned a couple of Macbook’s in the past but generally I prefer my computers in the desktop format. I don’t like hunching over for a low down screen, I don’t like little low travel keyboards or trackpads, I don’t like the lack of ports and I certainly don’t like worrying about batteries and charging. If I need to do things on the go I’ll use my phone or tablet in a pinch. I do have a laptop too but I’m not particularly fond of it and it’s just there as a backup.
I’ve had previous experience with the M1 chip, and found a good deal for a Mac Mini M1 on the used market. Admittedly it’s only the 8GB RAM version which I’m sure will stir fury in some people but my reasoning is that Lenovo only had 8GB too and that ran Windows 10 so this should be perfectly sufficient for my usage.
Now just to wait for it to arrive so I can get started!
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