Laptop angst

My laptop–a lovely G4 iBook–is [nearly four years old now](http://flyingsquirrel.ca/squirrel/archive.php?article=163). I didn’t get it for its power or anything, but it’s always disappointed me a bit in how it handles things like Flash-driven web pages and video. And four years is absolutely elderly for any sort of computer, laptops especially. I’ve lusted after the Intel MacBooks since they were released and have told myself that as soon as Leopard comes out, I’ll get one.

That was what? A year and a half ago? Leopard comes out today. And I’m faltering.

Apple’s been a miserable douchebag the last few months. They’re doing more and more to make sure people can do less and less with their own property. I hate that. I hate that a lot. General purpose computing means a lot to me. It’s my life and livelihood. They haven’t shown any evidence of trying to cripple Macs, but should I really be giving these people my money?

I actually use the laptop far more than I use my desktop machine these days. It’s not quite the useless toy I originally expected it to be. I’ve switched over to using Ubuntu on the desktop, but I haven’t actually been using it very much. Ubuntu’s been coming along rather well, and I’ve been thinking maybe I should standardize.

Dell is selling laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed and pre-configured. That would be awesome, except they aren’t selling them in Canada. The nice thing about getting someone to pre-install Ubuntu on a laptop is you’re pretty sure the hardware support is there. I’ve been able to find only [one](http://www.thelinuxstore.ca/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18&products_id=1235) Canadian pre-install company, and I’m not all that keen on their (refurb) hardware.

I could buy a Windows laptop and put Ubuntu on it, but [I could do that with a MacBook](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook), too. And I *like* MacBooks, being small and light with the decent trackpad and stuff. So I’m still torn. I do like my Mac and I still like Mac OS X (and all the cool software written for it). It’s just Apple that’s pissing me off right now.

I’m gonna have to mull it over some more.