Hey, folks,
My laptop broke the other day, and I need a replacement asap. But here's the rub: I despise windows. I've been a full time fedora user on my main device for a decade now, and I run Ubuntu on my desktop that I rarely touch because it's ooooold. I am not a techy person. At all. I'm an idiot, actually. I use Linux because it's cheaper, it keeps my aging hardware alive longer, and because politically I align pretty well with the idea of FOSS. And because I absolutely hate windows. I don't even like KDE, because it reminds me of windows. Cinnamon? Too much like windows! Lol. I love my workflow in gnome, I love that it's shiny and pretty and looks nice. And for the most part, I'm a browser based user. I rarely have cause to do much outside of the browser, except for sail the seas for some audiobooks. Even my papers for school are written in Google docs.
But also, on my desktop or a secondary device, I don't mind having to fiddle with things and get them working, I enjoy it. It makes me feel like I have actual tech skills when I absolutely do not. But on the device I use for school I just want something that works and I never have to think about. I feel like a traitor to the cause even considering it, but I think I want to get a used m1 air. I've never used a Mac before, though. I used an iPhone once, for about 10-15 minutes, and I hated it. But, like, of course I did. It was completely different, and incapable of doing the thing I wanted it to do.
How painful is the Linux to Mac transition? If I'm using an android phone, an Ubuntu desktop, and a MacBook, how awful is everything going to be to switch between devices? Am I going to regret this purchase, or, worse yet, become an apple fan boy and abandon my glorious FOSS devices forever?
Please assist
I have an m1 air (16GB), on the latest macos, and its fine. What are you doing that is slow?
Lol I have the 8 GB 2020 MacBook Air M1 and the thing still screams. What is it with Lemmy and the 8 GB debate? What are y’all doing??
I get it from a future proofing point of view, for a premium machine 8GB is silly.
But it does perform really well, and getting 6+ years of solid performance from a laptop with no active cooling is so nice.
Is it actually decent? I had just put the idea out of my head to even consider the 8gb model because I assumed in 2026 with everything getting AI shoved into it that it wouldn't function well. Even my college is using AI in our modules now, with built in 'assistants' in our digital textbooks. I don't think I could have gotten by with 8gb of rams on my laptop that just broke. It had 16 and got laggy often if I had more than 4 or 5 school tabs open.
Was it lagging due to ram or cpu? Is there a publically available digital textbook? I can test on my 16GB m1 for you if you can find one.
Honestly, I have no idea if its ram or CPU. Again, note the bit where I said I'm an idiot. Take it to heart. I speak plain and I speak true. Total moron over here. Hahaha.
I also have no idea if there are public textbooks available? We tend to use mindedge and a few others, but off the top of my head I don't remember which one had the AI companion in it
They only suspect that it will be slow.