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This is a continuation of my blog post series on trying to use a Surface Book as my primary computer. The first entry was Surface Book and the entry previous to this one was A Surface Roadblock.

I give up.

I got so frustrated today trying to just deal with basic window management that I said “well maybe I’ll just try the mac again for a few minutes…”. I’m not going back. Nope. Can’t make me do it.

This mac just works! Ugh! It does everything I need it to do and it gets out of the way and lets me work. I’m too busy to spend time shaving all the stupid yaks I’d have to shave to use that damn surface. And they’re not good yaks, like dealing with i3 or something, but annoying ones, like training my brain to expect bad behavior from the window manager.

I’m even really liking the damn fuzzy mac text renderer. It’s soft and inviting, it feels good on my eyes. It’s cozy. And it’s really legible.

Sure, typing my password is mildly annoying when waking up my computer, but if I get the new MBP I’ll get a fingerprint sensor so yay?

So ultimately I realized I really still want to be running linux and not locking myself up with these damn companies but if I’m going to chain myself to a desktop vendor it won’t be Microsoft for a long time still.

My 16 years of not using Windows as my primary desktop OS has only been broken for about a week.

Oh god and vim just works again. Welcome back, beloved "*! Hello again, iTerm! Homebrew, you crappy bastard, I even missed you.

It’s not all horrible

If you’re not a developer you’d probably love the machine. If you’re not used to using the keyboard for everything you’d probably be fine with Windows. If you’re just not picky about good window management maybe Win10’s window manager is good enough for you. The machine is bright and crisp, and the pen interface is pretty interesting. If I were a fine artist or graphic designer I’d probably love carrying what’s effectively a Cintiq with me everywhere. The battery life ultimately was pretty good. The 9-series nVidia graphics card was potent. The tablet functionality was effective and interesting.

It’s just not for me :)

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