I’m a final year CS student and I’ve been learning frontend development this year. I have 5 years old HP laptop and it works fine ig after I changed the OS to linux
It sometimes get stuck and freezes for a couple of seconds but overall it’s working fine. It has a pentium processor in it
I have to upgrade my laptop but I’m not sure if I should buy a windows laptop, with proper specs, change it to linux and use that or should I go for a macbook instead?
I also found a seller that has the new macbook air and is selling at a lower price. Should I just get this instead of buying a new one
What specs would you suggest for this.
It is totally a matter of budget and personal preference. A mac in no way makes you a better developer. A Linux machine in no way makes you a better developer. A windows machine in no way makes you a better developer. Just get the best machine in your budget and use the OS you prefer.
If you know you want Linux, you can also buy a laptop that comes standard with Linux (I know that ThinkPad has several Linux models, but I believe other companies do this too).
Unless you plan to freelance, your work computer will be provided by your employer and you will probably have little or no say in terms of manufacturer or operating system.
A computer that you buy will be for your personal use, so get the one that you like best (as appropriate for your budget). As Jeremy said, operating system isn’t going to affect how well suited the computer is for development.
Laptop PCs are generally cheaper than macBooks so you can definitely save money there, potentially quite a bit, so you don’t need to get a macBook. If your current laptop has an actual Pentium CPU, that would probably explain why it’s slow, because that’s an extremely budget-oriented CPU. If you get a new laptop, it should have a Core i5 at minimum, along with at least 8GB RAM.
In terms of web development it can definitely be really convenient to be running Linux though. You’re least likely to run into issues running tools and packages on Linux.
If you’re going to upgrade anyway, buy a mac. IMO. Because most programming runs well on unix based system. Windows and Linux with WSL is still quite a pain to handle, at least sometimes.
No need for the most recent Mac. I’m still on my macbook pro 2010. It works fine, although it does not support docker which is getting popular recently. You might want the one with at least Mojave OS. The thing with mojave is, that it’s the last one able to run 32 bits software like Adobe’s. After that, MacOS no longer supports 32 bits softwares.
There honestly isn’t any benefit to one OS over another in almost all cases. It is pure personal preference.
I like Linux on my machines. In my particular area of work, it is a little bit harder to get a mac set up with the software stack we use, but people do it every day. I know plenty of people who love WSL and find it very easy to setup. It’s all personal preference. In the end, there is absolutely zero benefit to the particular OS you use once your tech stack is set up. (Unless you are specifically doing development directly related to that particular OS).
Just get the nicest machine that matches your budget with the OS you prefer. Google lists of laptops at your price point and read up on reviews until you find one you like. Try some out in person in stores if you can.
You can be a good developer on any OS. You don’t need to buy into Mac, Linux, Windows, or whatever. Just write code in the OS you prefer.