Why bother?

Three weeks with an 2011 Thinkpad w520 as an experiment to see what life is like after Macbook Pros has been a tremendous success. I have even Optimus working on three screens. This ancient machine can take 32 GB (since for $AUD 360 I got a quadcore). If I bought a 15" Macbook in 2017, it would max out at 16GB, the same as an old Macbook pro my son has ended up with. It still has a DVD drive, that's how long the macs have been stuck at 16GB. I don't think the 15" Macs have a compelling hardware argument any longer that would encourage me to deal with the problems of running Linux. What's the pay back? The pursuit of thinness has meant inferior keyboards, 2010-era RAM capacity, a terrible port selection and no expandability to go with a sealed battery and glossy screens. As for battery life, this ancient W520 on its original battery still gets me five to six hours. That's a 2nd gen i7. Skylake should knock the socks of it.

A good thing about Macs is they have high resale value. I'll sell mine, and it will pay for my experimental W520 and the P50 on the way. Apple doesn't help Linux, and there doesn't seem to be much reason any longer to even try.

Ubuntu by the way has been amazing. While I use linux a lot on servers, and increasingly in desktop VMs, I did not expect it to be such a capable replacement as a daily driver. I am completely convinced now.