I recently came into a Macbook Pro, 18 GB of Ram, 1TB of storage. Its the only Mac thing I own. Its a real shame I have no idea what to do with this and it is just sitting there. I want to use it for something, but I dont know what. My homelab already has a huge host with a threadripper in it (which also fell into my hands), a pi-hole on a low end pi, and an old PC that runs a Minecraft server just fine. Any suggestions for what to do with this bad boy? I’m not afraid of any OS, all are welcome here. I tend to mostly host media and game servers, I do not have any home automation yet.

Edit: thank you everyone for the suggestions. I love this community <3

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 day ago

    I mostly use Linux but I have a MacBook from a previous job. I mostly use it for media consumption. It’s not the problem it once was but back in the day, Linux and streaming services didn’t always get along because of DRM.

    I do like how using macOS pushes me to get the design details right on my own software. I mean, say what you want about Apple but they do usually put care into the aesthetics and design details. When I feel like a project is done because it’s functional, I’m wrong. That extra 10% effort to use the right fonts or consistent margins or whatever is what makes good software great.

    So, I would say use it as a learning tool. There’s plenty things that are worse on macOS but it’s different. And that’s healthy. Periodically using a different OS with a different goal is good for you. (Don’t bother with Windows 11. Nothing of honor is to be found there. Distro hop and keep Windows in a VM if you need it.)

    I also found it helpful when working from home. Like, I’d spend all day on my Linux machine writing code or whatever and then I’d clock out and just use the MacBook. I could have probably used a PlayStation or done anything but sometimes, you’re busy. Switching operating systems and having zero work stuff on one computer can be good when you’ve had a long day.