I ran a windows XP VM on my pentium M laptop in high school and didn't care too much. Ran like I expected, slow and meh. With that macbook you'll have a core you can dedicate to it, and I hope / assume 8 GB ram that you can split in half. So with that, whatever you want to run you could probably only run 1 at a time, but it would work well enough.
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then you shouldn't. very few modern laptops have any problems with wifi/etc. on linux. do just a tiny bit of research before you buy, and you'll be fine. Dells tend to have very good linux compatibility, for example (but again, it's not as big an issue as you think it is).
if you don't want a mac because you want a mac (you like the os, the style/status, whatever), then you won't be happy owning one. and you'll be spending extra money for the privilege.
edit
my earlier comment applies to this as well: you don't want/need a full VM to write your scripts in. in fact, if the target environment is a server, then you should do your dev+testing on something that closely resembles a server. a desktop installation of linux does not (it's much closer than windows, or osx, but it still doesn't).
docker, imo, is still what you want. note, i'm recommending this even if you use linux as your desktop os. write your bash scripts in whatever editor you prefer, then ssh into the container and test them in a realistic, server-like environment.
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it's a crappy jail basically. Good intermediate between full on virtualization and regular sandboxing
But I have to use the host OS Kernel? So I could use docker on Linux for a Linux container, but on a Mac I couldn't use docker to create a Linux container?
he's suggesting you spin up a vps I think
Gotcha - rather not use a VPS for this one.
So I guess an Air it is.
You should know that the air is quite outdated but maybe that's not really an argument you care about.
You are right about needing a Linux container (by container I mean VM) for Docker, but Docker for Mac or boot2docker will set you up with a minimal VM layer that is going to be mostly transparent to you.
I use a Mac and I still choose to spinup Ubuntu in vagrant for Docker work, but that may change soon.
Thanks for the Mac buyers guide. So basically, don't buy a Mac right now because it's going to not be supported soon.
Great! This sucks
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They're moving away from any heavy use cases more and more, so I'd keep this in mind moving forward, period.
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So it seems like this:
An air would work, but is possibly limited on support. Mac Pro is expensive, probably supported, but no promises.
This sucks - I'm still thinking Air.
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Just a quick question if your a sys admin can't you spin up a VM that you can run docker on? You can simulate the production using docker containers and run your bash scripts against them. I know you have already ruled this out but you have missed the massive wins, that once the environment is created you will be able to test scripts, test rollback and if it all goes sideways you can just tear it all down and rerun the build scripts probably 5 min from problem to fresh install.
Ok sounds cool. I'll spin up a vm and put docker on it. Can I rsync the server back into the container?
You can rsync the server to a container but not 100% what you're trying to do? Is it possible to get a little more info you said test bash scripts but what are the bash scripts trying to do?
Basically, I write scripts to automate things.
For example (and this is a weak one), I have a web screen scraper of our staff directory where I can enter anyone's name or email and it returns their name, position, email, phone number and office #. This will work on any Linux BASH terminal. If you have linux I could send it to you and unless you're on a korn shell or csh - it's going to work. It uses vanilla BASH utilities, which are bread and butter for Linux. However, it uses grep, so that may not work on a Mac Terminal. In addition, I use a lot of PERL, all very vanilla, tried and true stuff.
All the stuff I write is very portable. That's not done by mistake. My philosophy is to use tools, languages and utlities that are on all my servers so I don't have "one-offs." I use vim, grep, sed, awk, perl - all stuff that doesn't change and is on all Linux (and most Unix) servers natively. This is just my philosophy - You wont' catch me writing stuff in Python and importing non-native python modules, etc. I'm not here to get into a debate, but PERL 5 is very stable, and extremely robust for sysadmin. My stuff will run on all of my servers and all other linux machines, period - otherwise I'll figure out how to. No dis to anyone else - what works for others is best for them and I HIGHLY respect other's workflows.
Another example is some of our servers require files to be in a certain format to update stuff - OK perl or sed/grep/awk is going to handle this for me, and it's going to run on all my server and my local box - guaranteed. I purposely use old, stable utilities because they don't change much.
My main problem is my Linux laptop has horrrrrrible wifi problems, I've always had to a certain extent difficulty with laptops, linux and wifi - when I was in college I had to learn a shload (at that time) about networking just to get my Ubuntu laptop on the network. At the time it was wonderful - my network skills leveled up. At this point, at work, I'm so pressed for time, I've automated all the possible tasks I can, I mean I hit the big time savers, and now I'm into automating 2 minute tasks to free up enough time to move the organization forward on projects. (For gosh sake's, I automated a substantial portion of my routine emails, but writing a Ruby script - it makes me feel dirty, but it was eating into my time - so, here talk to the email robot to help you.)
Therefore, I need a unix machine to connect to wifi 99% of the time, no bs, I click connect, enter a password and I'm on. Mac will do this, no ripping apart my laptop to replace my wireless NIC, no finding the right sec. cert, it will just connect like a (dare I say...) windows machine.
So my idea is to get a Mac for remote access via SSH into my servers. When I want to write a script, I'll launch a Fedora VM (believe I know that desktop Linux is different from servers - I'm on both all day (not to sound like sysadmin god - I'm not, you can see that I'm asking some pretty basic stuff here)). However, sometimes I'll just want to ghost-write code on a linux box, that's not my servers. It's going to be vanialla, and it will run on all machines. Obviously, different servers have different directory structures, but it's the concept I test, not the actual final script.
Lastly, on this long winded approach, Linux is great on workstations and Server, however, laptops are not it's area of expertise. When I'm at my desk I'll be on my Linux wizard machine. However, when I'm away from my desk, at a remote site, or need to be mobile - I just want a unix laptop that's good on wifi and can handle a linux vm. That's all.
Any advice appreciated - I'm happy to provide details if requested.
So it looks like you're just wanting a bash prompt. I'm not sure Docker is really what you want it's a bit substantial for just that. Possibly your first plan of just running a Linux VM on the Mac may work best, if you don't fancy putting Linux on the Mac. It should be able to handle a VM for just bash.
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I respect your ability to boil stuff down! That's awesome.
I'm just kind of in an info overload right now... hearing the Air may not be supported anymore kind of sucks, real wrench in the plan here.
Nothing like a $1000 Bash prompt, right!?! Really puts the "Free as in speech, not as in beer" in FOSS philosophy to work, huh?
Here do this.
And remote into it. Don't worry about the nitty tiny shit I can help you with that if you need it and ram is everywhere for these things. I think thats a 3,1. If you wanna do the 4,1 upgrade thing...
Tada.
Plus sell the processors if you upgrade them and get 80 bucks back.
Truely appreciate it aremis- but
It's gotta be a laptop. My Linux workstation kicks ass - it's when I'm not at my desk and need a laptop my life sucks.
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Gotcha gimme a sec. Hope you don't care about age...