[fbnlsr]

I'm a web developer and lately I've been using less and less Photoshop, which was the sole reason I kept using a mac as my main dev platform.

I'm really wondering if my next machine is going to be a mac. I'm pretty sure I could be as productive with a beefy IBM Thinkpad or a Dell XPS running Ubuntu.

[Theodores]

Breaking the chain with Photoshop is a good idea if you are a web developer rather than an artist. Most of what you need to do with images is best done on the command line or even within your IDE. Creative endeavours are also best done with HTML + CSS instead of the desktop publishing way.

I could not imagine life without Photoshop but nowadays I much prefer process rather than Photoshop wizardry. Everyone mocks Gimp and Inkscape for not being professional, same with Open Office Calc. I think that in web developer world it is the other way around, these open source tools are far better if you are fundamentally dealing with data that you are going to be coding with. They also obfuscate, for instance with SVG graphics it is much better to do them with the open source tools for HTML elements such as logos and icons. You don't get to actually understand the principles with the Adobe product so that 'magnifying glass' icon is some path made of hundreds of points listed to nine decimal places instead of two lines - one for the circle and one for the handle.

Ubuntu is also a good idea, your webserver is running native and there doesn't have to be some waste of time building a 'vagrant box' or whatever. All the instructions work too, so if you want to get things done with some linux application you just install it as per online instructions rather than find a paid for tool/software as a service workaround.

There is a lot of FUD regarding what works for Ubuntu and who would spend $$$ not knowing if they have wifi? In reality it is fine on linux whatever box you get.

The consumer Lenovo devices are a better bet than the Thinkpads, you can do well with built in Intel graphics if you are a mere web developer and the screens on the Yoga things are gorgeous. If the keyboard suits you and has backlights then you should be fine. As for the Dell, go for the refurbished and save yourself the $$$. You won't regret the saving particularly if you can get th 4K display for the price of a non-touch lame-display.

Don't even bother with dual boot as Windows is a waste of space on a dual boot Ubuntu machine as you will never use it.

[fencepost]

Ubuntu is also a good idea, your webserver is running native and there doesn't have to be some waste of time building a 'vagrant box' or whatever. All the instructions work too, so if you want to get things done with some linux application you just install it as per online instructions rather than find a paid for tool/software as a service workaround. ... Don't even bother with dual boot as Windows is a waste of space on a dual boot Ubuntu machine as you will never use it.

I will note that Windows 10 (Pro at least, not sure about Home) on laptops with appropriate virtualization capabilities can do a heck of a job of running Linux VMs with basically trivial setup. At a quick glance, the Microsoft Store (for installing software in Windows) includes VMs for Ubuntu, Ubuntu LTS, Debian, SUSE Enterprise, openSUSE and Kali.

One downside, I'm not sure how it is for spinning up multiple instances.

[Theodores]

Actually you just reminded me what Windows is good for in web development - testing on the 'Edge' or 'Internet Explorer' browsers.

Rather than run Windows native you can download and run the Virtualbox version Microsoft offer for free just for web developers to test browser compatibility with.

With Windows the file system is nowhere near as fast as Linux due to design considerations made in the MS-DOS and Windows NT days. If your code base has thousands of files then reading them across the file systems is a pain meaning that everything runs slow in Windows, the VM or both, particularly with Vagrant type setups. Native Ubuntu is like a breath of fresh air if you have had to work with compromised development arrangements where company policy dictates a slow Windows machine.

[fencepost]

I can believe that NTFS is slower than most Linux filesystems, though I'd be curious how much of that relates to things like use of ACLs, etc. Regardless, both security-related and filesystem-related speed differences on developer systems should be effectively negligible except in edge cases.

If filesystem differences are making a significant difference, it's time for someone to suck it up and spend a few hundred dollars on SSDs for the developers (and not the cheapest ones available, which frequently lack DRAM and can have their own speed issues).