Should I buy a surface book to develop in meteor?

help
1

I’m considering getting a high-end laptop.

Right now I have a Dell inspiron 15 3521 with a 3rd gen i3, 12gb ram, 256gb ssd.

Everything works fine here except I can’t upgrade that cpu and it’s starting to slow down my development process plus the battery is awful.

I mostly do my development in Ubuntu (Elementary OS freya) but I am wondering how well will windows work if I do develop mainly in a windows environment since I would be spending around 1.7k on the computer.

2

@jsantana, don’t use windows often anymore, but I believe the sun is slowly setting on this OS. Node, meteor may be a challenge. Launching nginx, Apache, ssh etc. so much easier from cmd line.

3

Get a Macbook Pro if you’re working in the JavaScript world. You can always run Windows in parallels if you need Visual Studio.

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4

Have to agree with the above. If money wasn’t an object, I’d think about a Macbook Pro. Otherwise, you can get an i7 with great specs and run Ubuntu for under a grand easy. Also, could be me but there is some weird comfort about running the same OS locally as you do on 95% of your servers.

5

Any good recommendations for a pc? Should I wait for the next macbook pro if I decide to get one?

6

Yes, they should be announcing the new version of the Macbook Pro’s in the next month or so (and they’ll go on sale shortly after).

7

If you are willing to go Windows:
props/specials (IMO) :

  • Windows is quite stable now. For me, actually it was always just as stable… Just had to wait after update.
  • Windows gets better with things like ConEmu(terminal replacement)
  • Windows lovely to operate with touch. Actually Mac is no-go here.
  • You will love the god damn god-pen of the god damn SurfaceBook

cons/disadvantages (IMO):

  • Sometimes it breaks… But sometimes Mac does.
  • No Sketch support. Some find it really cool.
  • No linux superpower(win10 says - now there are).
  • Meteor installs in a path you wouldn’t really want it see in.

Extra:

  • Do what you want, ‘cause a pirate be free’!
    You know… sometimes it just… helps…
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8

lol I could understand like half the things you said xD

Would you like to explain a bit more what ConEmu does?

The no linux superpower got not idea what you’re talking about :joy:

Meteor path installation?

9

Don’t buy a computer that only runs Windows today. Either go for Mac or a Laptop that is known to run Linux well. I use an Asus Zenbook with Linux Mint. Works great.

10

If you want to use windows, just use WebStorm for your IDE. All of a sudden, all the annoyances/inefficiencies of running Meteor on windows are gone, and you can focus 100% on development (and it works fine). Our work PC’s are windows, and even on the older/slower ones, Meteor/WebStorm with our full large project run at least 100% faster than Visual Studio on a brand new project.

11

Get a Dell XPS 15 and put Linux on it. You can then run VMware workstation and run Windows and OSx as VMs.

12

So

ConEmu - https://conemu.github.io/
First you hate when you swap Mac to Windows is terminal. Windows.Teminal.Sucks.
That thing replaces regular one with much better one. Even better than standart Mac terminal…

Linux superpower are things like apt-get, and various handy pre-installs like SSH.
On Windows you have to setup everything your own. And not always successful…

Meteor likes to install itself into weird hidden user folders.
You just cannot(could not? idk for now) install it into different directory or HDD without overhead.

So far, regardless of what many ppl here say.
I had no troubles with any of 3 Windows computers I used to work with.

13

I’ve bought a Dell Chromebook 13 (8GB ram, 32GB SSD - replaced SSD) Could not be more happy. Put Chromium OS on it, runs really quick. No privacy-issues like with Win 10, no M$ tax, no strange keyboard shortcuts like OS X :slight_smile:

14

Having used all three ( MS, Linux, Mac), I now exclusively work in Linux ( Ubuntu ).

For me, the main advantage is having the same workstation OS for dev as my production servers ( Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04).

No issues in installing and using node, npm packages, …

And for testing, I fire up a Win7, Win10 or Mac in Virtualbox.

15

The vast majority of the web development world (and Meteor world) uses Macs. That’s not to say you can’t be productive without it, but you’re really setting up yourself for a lot of unnecessary pain.

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16

Windows 10 has Ubuntu bash included now (yay linux super-power!).

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17

hmm, you can run Meteor on ChromeOS?

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18

No; Chromium is a really smooth linux distro for chromebooks. That’s what I installed on it, and now it is just a full-blown linux-laptop.
I’m not to much of a OS-hacker (as in: totally not) but installation was really easy. I am very happy with it!

19

I got a surface book recently and windows 10 + the linux subsystem is awesome. Just follow this guide to get it up and running:

I’ve since decided to port my app away from meteor but have been doing development in node/express/react without any issues using bash in windows 10. I imagine meteor would be the same as long as you’re using the linux installer.

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20

You do NOT need a Mac to develop in Meteor. I’m a Libertarian on this, like most other things, if you want someone who has considered the nuance, it’s me. I think if you really like that laptop, then get it, it’ll work just fine.

I develop on Mac at work, my gaming rig, Windows 10 at home (I have both native and the new Ubuntu libs all working great with Meteor 1.4.x), and we deploy on Centos on AWS. I am lead dev for Inrix Analytics UI, and I am the reason we use Meteor and its ability to be agnostic was a primary variable in that decision. Get whatever hardware you want and think is cool.

BP

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