The Soul of an New Old Machine: my Lenovo x220
Let it be known that when I significantly change jobs I buy a new laptop. Which is why I find myself typing this on the Lenovo x220 I purchased for 120CHF at the local used hardware shop here in Oerlikon. Once I have finished to set it up (it already has new SSD, RAM and battery pack for an extra 200CHF), my 13" MacBook will be mostly my work computer (for my technical advisor job).
Here is a picture of it. If you care why I chose an x220 and the switch back to linux, then do read on.
The thinking goes as follows:
PS.1: "The Soul of a New Machine" is a book published in 1981. My title is a homage to the book as there are only so many good narratives on hardware and software developments. The book has aged a bit: who cares about 32bit computers in 2020? Yet it captures that "soul" aspect, where we engineers look at the world inside out, from technology outwards. Of course, over the years I have learned to see the world in many other ways, for example, from a the product manager's client using the product view, or from head of HR orchestrated people perspective, yet the engineer, in his/her deeply mechanized and often deeply theoretical ether, is a special place I still do like to revisit.
All original content copyright James Litsios, 2019.
Here is a picture of it. If you care why I chose an x220 and the switch back to linux, then do read on.
The thinking goes as follows:
- Leaving Apple: In 2015 I chose MacBooks as standard laptop for engineers at Elevence, really because when you get acquired, you need to be already halfway enterprise. Yet the choice became a pain because of the extra effort needed to get development tools running on Mac OS. Then in 2016, Apple stopped being developer friendly by killing touch typing with the Touch Bar, and worse by removing the Escape key. (And yes, of course you can reassign it, but that is not the same as a native, well placed key).
- Not a new laptop: I use to buy new generation laptops for speed, features, and security. Speed is no longer needed. Features are always lacking as product managers have learned their lesson and avoid perfect products that no one replaces. And true security seems to be gone for good now: this laptop stays home.
- Linux: "What else?" as Mr. Clooney would say. Not only for the developer tools and window manager friendliness, but also because it is cool to type fdisk and to be brought back to my early 90's Sun Microsystems experience (I was a SunOS sysadmin for ~3years).
- Lenovo x220: The x220 is the last laptop with a deeper key action, and I love to touch type. As I also love well placed control keys (ctrl, alt, super, ...) to "drive" window managers like i3 or XMonad and editors like vi and emacs (10+ years under DOS (Desmet C, Zortech C++) and then Emacs and vi on SunOS and Linux for another 10+ years will do that to you!).
PS.1: "The Soul of a New Machine" is a book published in 1981. My title is a homage to the book as there are only so many good narratives on hardware and software developments. The book has aged a bit: who cares about 32bit computers in 2020? Yet it captures that "soul" aspect, where we engineers look at the world inside out, from technology outwards. Of course, over the years I have learned to see the world in many other ways, for example, from a the product manager's client using the product view, or from head of HR orchestrated people perspective, yet the engineer, in his/her deeply mechanized and often deeply theoretical ether, is a special place I still do like to revisit.
All original content copyright James Litsios, 2019.