[drewzero1]

I was also Linux-only for several years, then I started getting into Macs and they felt more or less good enough. I definitely appreciated not spending as much time just to make my computer work, and I liked the familiarity of the terminal. I started drifting back toward Linux as my Macs started to give out.

The macOS installer kept failing and I had to jump through hoops to download the installer for the macOS version I wanted and 'verify' it. (This was ~10.10-10.13, not sure if it's still as much trouble to verify an installer that isn't the latest version.) After the second Mac that refused to reinstall, I had had enough and put Ubuntu on it.

I started to realize around 2012 (with the release of soldered-RAM Retina MBPs and razor-edge discless iMacs) that Apple did not need me as a customer, and eventually I was fine with that. I have one remaining Mac Mini that I use as an HTPC and to get pictures off of my iPad. For daily use I usually prefer an old Thinkpad running Debian.

[hotcrossbunny]

Same here with regards to preferring the old Thinkpads for daily use. The trouble as I it is that the great ones are getting really old now, and the newer ones don't seem to be of the same ilk.

[drewzero1]

I picked up a W500 recently to replace my R61i, and while it’s an incremental improvement it easily handles 80 percent of what I need a computer to do. I’m planning to add a Bluetooth adapter to get that up to 90%, the rest being limitations of the Core2 Duo and graphics card.

I’d maybe consider going a little newer and going to a T series but it sounds like they really started going downhill (build-wise) when they changed the keyboard. Even the W500 has a lot more keyboard flex than the R61i, in an attempt to add lightness to a chunky laptop.