HP Dev One Production Ends For One Of The Most Interesting Linux Developer Laptops

[stormcrow]

I just don't see a strong market for Linux machines. I am developer and I typically buy a windows machine that I install Ubuntu on. This can easily save me few hundred dollars. It is definitely not a big market for HP to be involved with.

It wasn't that great a machine, either. Unlike many people in Phoronix forums, I don't discount a 16GB RAM system for development work. That's perfectly adequate if you're not trying to make your laptop a build server running Chromium or Mozilla builds (and you shouldn't be doing that on a laptop if you aren't a nomad)... or think you're god's gift to the GCC project. Dev One just had the read of a half-hearted attempt from HP to offer a Windows laptop as a Linux laptop instead of thinking the product through. I also think it was a mistake for System 76 to sign their name to it. Developers are varied and diverse. It's a mistake to drop into "one size fits all" mindset even when it comes to developers... or especially when it comes to developers. The only reason my personal desktop, which I also use to build up-to-date ham radio packages, has 32 GB of RAM is because many of the most current games are just slightly too constrained in 16 GB. It's certainly not because I need even 16 GB to browse the web, nor does fldigi and the like need all that RAM to build. They would build just as quickly in 8 GB.

A lot of people make the mistake of making a laptop their primary system. If you literally are always on the go and you have no home base (a real nomad or have no connectivity at home), a laptop is what you should get. It's the right tool for the job. But if you spend most of your time in an office or at home, you're making a huge mistake in not leveraging the capabilities of desktops, their more forgiving thermal profiles, expandability, repairability, and only use a lightweight terminal when you have to be on the go, especially if all you're doing is shifting your ... weight... to the living room's couch. That is exactly why I have a lower end M series MBP for on the go: education environment friendly (lugging it on your back all day isn't as tiring at around 2.5 lbs), long battery life, ssh/remote desktops are wonderful things! This even works if you live in a dorm at many universities. A lot of first-time students or their parents make the mistake of buying a laptop that's too heavy, too large, and ridiculously over powered for school work when most schools provide considerable computing resources already. Students just need adequate (and light!) client terminals for those resources. Many inexperienced and sometimes experienced, who should know better, developers do the same thing.

Laptops are thermally constrained. The more features added the heavier and hotter they get, and less battery life. The hotter they get, the more they throttle, and the slower they get. They are also not great for people getting older with equally older eyes. Many PC laptop panels are just plain awful if you have to stare at them for any length of time (the other reason I got the Mac - better panel is easier on the eyes and MacOS handles HiDPI/scaling better than both Windows and Linux). Spend your money on your desktop and its monitor. Skimp (if you need to) on your remote terminal but try to get one with a good screen panel. Used laptops are often a steal and often much more repairable than a lot of new ones.

Long winded thought process. Similar to you, I don't think the dedicated "Linux developer laptop" is really where "the market" is at. Rather, it's appropriate to have a PC laptop designed with tested Linux compatible hardware as laptops are notorious for Windows-only hardware and poor power profiles outside of Windows regardless of how it's used. The "developer" moniker is just marketing just like tacking "gamer" and superfluous chromatic LEDs is for multi-button mice, motherboards, and mechanical keyboards.

[cb88]

16GB isn't viable for developers unless they are spending a significant amount of time selecting lightweight software and optimizing thier systems that should be spent developing.

Email + Browser + a few office documents open + KiCad + 1 RDP session + a chat client and I am past 16GB... leaving the rest of the 40GB for say running a compiler or opening a VM (16GB kit + 8GB that came in the laptop its a 4 so-dimm laptop).

[rclark]

But if you spend most of your time in an office or at home, you're making a huge mistake in not leveraging the capabilities of desktops, their more forgiving thermal profiles, expandability, repairability, and only use a lightweight terminal when you have to be on the go

I agree. That is why I have desktop/workstations for the home. Laptop(s) are used 'upstairs' for general use and for 'traveling'... Not so for much development... Sometimes when I am on the go, I like to program a bit if I find the time. Or pull up FreeCad for an idea, or KiCad ... or ...

[Luke_Wolf]

16GB isn't viable for developers unless they are spending a significant amount of time selecting lightweight software and optimizing thier systems that should be spent developing.

Email + Browser + a few office documents open + KiCad + 1 RDP session + a chat client and I am past 16GB... leaving the rest of the 40GB for say running a compiler or opening a VM (16GB kit + 8GB that came in the laptop its a 4 so-dimm laptop).

Yeah, my contention with this and for that matter the Dell version of it is that okay they're business laptops... great but anyone doing software development at a company that isn't being silly with the hardware they're handing out... knows calling it a "developer laptop" is just plain silly. It's fine if you just want something to use Linux on, but most other laptops these days will work just as well. Heck the fact is that the HP Dev One is just a bog standard low end HP Elitebook. If you want to support Linux hardware and you're just a user it's fine as a machine, but if you're a developer and want to support Linux hardware go buy a System76 machine instead, or if you don't care about that plenty of other companies have much better hardware available.

Sure some people might be able to do some development at home within these constraints but Intellij eats a 4GB hole in your memory just by being open and once you start loading projects in it, it gets worse. A developer's web browser will have a billion open tabs during development activities, and if you need to be playing around with docker, VMs, etc like you would in the professional world, it's game over man... game over if all you've got is 16GB or less.

[Luke_Wolf]

I agree. That is why I have desktop/workstations for the home. Laptop(s) are used 'upstairs' for general use and for 'traveling'... Not so for much development... Sometimes when I am on the go, I like to program a bit if I find the time. Or pull up FreeCad for an idea, or KiCad ... or ...

As much as I might agree with the idea, that's not the way the business world sees things. Which is why "developer laptop" is a business term analogous to "mobile workstation".

[rclark]

I suppose for 'work'. My 'company' development workstation is a multi-user VM. My corporate laptop(s) is for 'normal' stuff (email, browser, documents, etc.) . Not development per-say.