I am a freelance web developer geared towards Ruby on Rails. The main components

Question

I am a freelance web developer geared towards Ruby on Rails. The main components of my current working environment are a 27" iMac, Textmate and git/github (which is not going to change any time soon).

What I am looking for is a nice little/portable laptop that will allow me to make a quick get-in/fix-something/test/push/get-out dance when not at home (home is where I work from). I am fairly familiar with Linux and Vim and I think I can easily work with both environments (OSX and Linux).

Granted that the laptop will only be used occasionally and in a hurry, is there something I should be worried about when working with OSX and Linux at the same time? (mind you that the laptop will solely be used for work and thus there is no requirement for it to be able to manage my photo library)

Anyone had an experience with a relevant setup?

Explanation / Answer

Hmm. Working with Ruby on Rails? That means your processing requirements are pretty low (no need for compilation) and the most important thing is screen real estate. There are a few things to consider:

Bottom line: laptop support in Linux has really come along, and the Ubuntu team has done a great job making Linux usable on that platform. No Firefox rendering issues and Chromium is really fast on Ubuntu, and I'm running a rather mediocre 1GHz single core processor. Boot times are roughly 30-45 seconds on my outdated hardware.

Mac on the other hand is nearly instant on--particularly with the MacBook Airs. Superior battery life, usable screen real estate, lightweight, and a pleasure to use.

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