Like Glyph when he got the black one, I really haven’t gone through any buyer’s remorse. The MacBook is a great machine. I couldn’t bring myself to pay extra for a DVD burner or a black paint job, though, so I spent the money bumping it up to 2GB of RAM.

OS X is really nice. The setup process is so much better than when you get a new Windows machine. One of the first things you see (now that every one comes with iSight) is your own face, when it asks you to take a photo for the login page. I still recommend a Mac for anyone looking for a new computer, especially now that Vista is out.

It’s also been a long time since I installed Linux on a personal machine. I picked up a Dell Inspiron 1100 about four years ago, and it was a challenge just getting X working properly. This time I just searched for MacBook Ubuntu and found everything I needed. Canonical has definitely done a lot to make Ubuntu a worthwhile desktop.

A few thoughts so far:

• The keyboard isn’t as annoying as I thought it might be. I’ve had a Thinkpad from work for a few years, and I grew to really love the “full” keyboard (by which I mean Insert, Delete, Home, End, PageUp, PageDown). But I’m quickly getting used to not having them.
• Getting the wireless to work still requires NDISwrapper, which is annoying.
• Suspend and hibernate won’t work. I’ve been tracking several related threads (92635, 117864, 398391) and so far nothing’s solved the problem. I can’t tell if this is because I’m doing something wrong, or whether the newest line of MacBooks introduced some new variable that nobody’s aware of.
• MacBook support, in general, feels “almost there” in Feisty. A lot of the function keys work, but it doesn’t automatically install 915resolution or support the iSight camera.

No remorse, though. It’s great to have a personal laptop. I have long had a philosophical objection to keeping large amounts of personal data and settings on my Thinkpad. Now I can let my work computers truly stay work computers.

It’s also great to be using Linux again; it’s made hacking for Twisted a lot easier, and helped me fix this site’s broken links. There’s also an intangible feeling of control — of knowing your operating system really will do whatever you want it to — that you just don’t get on a Windows machine.

It’s good to be back.