After a little input on the M4 Mac mini... Considering purchasing one in the next couple of weeks after years of being a Linux User (Ubuntu mostly). This will be purely for 'work' and some streaming as am considering live streaming my Wappler sessions (no airs and graces so won't be for the faint hearted). As it has Thunderbolt I'm not worried about the 'base' spec 250gb option being an issue as an external SSD will store most of my files. Only concern is 16mb of memory at this point. I'd like to hear from anyone using a 'base spec' M4 Mac mini and their thoughts on it? Like I said will only be for development work and a little live streaming (VSC, Wappler, Neovim, OBS, etc). These days I do not travel out to Clients as much as in the past so have no need for an all singing all dancing laptop...
Will the M4 Mac mini do the job for me and be future proof for the next 24 months or so..?
Also would like to hear from any User with experience of going from Linux to Mac who could share their thoughts?
For normal Wappler usage M4 Mac mini is more than perfect.
But also looking into the future and considering Wappler 7 AI integration, a good hardware with AI capabilities and enough memory will be great specially if you want to be cost effective and run the LLMs locally.
And even for that M4 Mac mini is perfect. 16 GB ram is really minimum though.
I'm on a Mac Studio M1 Max with 32GB RAM and it's been flawless since I got it about 3 years ago. The M4 will be a significant jump from the M1 but I would say pay a bit more and get 32GB RAM. You won't need any more than that but sticking with 16GB should still be fine but the luxury of double the RAM is worth it in my view.
And I don't think you'll have any trouble transitioning from Linux to MacOS. I've dabbled with Linux (I have some Raspberry Pi's) but I'm no expert.
My machine is an Intel NUC with an Intel Core i7 chip and 32GB ram. My decision was based on:
Customizability: Unlike the Mac mini, NUCs allow you to upgrade RAM and storage, giving you more flexibility.
Performance Options: Depending on the model, you can choose from a range of processors, including high-performance Intel Core i7 or i9 chips, which are excellent for development and streaming tasks.
Operating System: You can install Linux, Windows, or even run macOS in a virtualized environment, offering more freedom compared to the Mac mini's macOS ecosystem.
Portability: NUCs are small and lightweight, making them easy to transport if needed.
Ben's setup does sound good and I would always be tempted to have hardware that can be modified and upgraded easily. Apple don't let you do anything anymore, you're stuck with the spec you purchased. But, the advantage is that all the hardware plays happily with each other as it's all put together by Apple. No video cards or IO cards to conflict with each other or getting the right drivers, etc. although I suspect that's mostly a thing of the past.
One this I will say, though, is the Apple Silicon chip is way better than Intel. My fans never run even when doing intensive video editing. ARM chips are the business. So anything from M1 onwards will be a joy to use.
honestly my mac m4 mini, is a beast, its my most powerful computer(single core).
However i hate mac os. So i just remote into it with vs code, and never use the ui/mac os directly.
I also have a ai machine and another linux computer.
Mac mini smashes all of them for any single core processes. But i still use other machines alot because gpu and preferring linux/windows of mac os.
16gb for mac mini has been plenty, but it legit only running my vs code project (still gets up to 8-10gb with just that, so wouldn't be enough if i was using like normal computer).
My other computers have 64gb ram and i am always like 80% with those.
Thank you all very much for the insights and suggestions I really appreciate them.
@ben - This time around I just want a turnkey solution. I've had my fair share of building various boxes for myself and Clients/friends/family. I enjoy the process but in this circumstance I'm not going that route for this purchase. The M4 chip is the big factor in the decision to consider a Mac for the first time ever, that, and its price-point for the performance (even a NUC can't compete with the cost of it for what it is). However, and as always, I sincerely appreciate your input.
I'll add some additional memory and think I'll be happy at that. I don't want to blow the budget just because it is a toe in the water so to speak. If I am happy the next time round I'll chuck a good chunk of change at Apple but for now I want to just see how it goes.
I would also consider a slightly older Mac Mini, maybe an M2 or M3, which will being the cost down and allow you to have more RAM instead. Just a thought. The big differences are probably the number of monitors you'll be able to connect to it so if you're a screens freak then the M4 might be what you need. I've lost track of how many each model can support!
You didn't answer about the screen, so I'm going to warn you, MacOS removed subpixel anti-aliasing, so you need a HiDPI screen to look good. But then you use Ubuntu (which I disliked their font rendering), so I suppose you might not notice or get used to it
Sorry had to hit the supermarket for some supplies (24 cans of Redbull and 96 coffee capsules hahaha...).
With regards to display panels. We only use Asus ProArt displays so should all be fine in that regard. Fonts on Ubuntu look great. Crisp and clear. Smooth as butter.
Thank you for the heads-up though gentleman. Much appreciated once again!
And thanks for the link@George. Hoping to run good old Deepseek locally so will definitely up the memory specs. Cheers too @Hinky (nice to see you and thank you for dropping by).
For reference:
Windows/Linux(Arch): I9-14900K, 64 GB, 4090.
Mac: Macbook Pro (M3 Pro) 2023
All machines are used on a Samsung Odyssey G9
Out of all 3 os's, I really don't like coding or using Wappler on my Mac. It just never feels as good when it comes to multitasking. Even for my Wappler IOS app, I've started building it on Windows and will just build the physical app on my Mac instead. I know Macs are considered great for productivity, but I've found there's just apps that don't match what I have on Windows or even Linux when it comes to that, and I end up being slower. I just don't like how MacOS fundamentally works in that aspect.
If you're thinking about streaming, I also think Mac is probably the worst of all the platforms for it.
That said, my biggest issue with Macs truly is not being able to upgrade the internals practically at all, especially given the ridiculous price they charge for RAM. When you account for the cost including RAM, you can honestly build a pretty good Windows/Linux machine. If you also end up in a year doing some kind of development outside of Wappler that requires more RAM, you're pretty much screwed unless you upgrade the entire machine.
On a positive note, though, the m4 chip is definitely future-proof. Even the M1 is still good.
Edit: Also big note here. If you are using external monitors, make sure the Mac supports the amount of monitors you have at the resolution and MHz. It's such a pain with the M series Macs. I had to try 3 separate cables to get it to work.
I'm not going to be pushing the limits @Hyperbytes but by all accounts it should be fine for our purposes even with the base set-up (with a little extra memory). I've watched a few videos on creating a cluster to run more intensive tasks and with the cost of the Mac being so low the cost will still be several times less than buying a couple of graphics cards (besides I have a laptop so would need to also build a desktop to make use of them). For anything intensive we'll book a few hours on Digital Ocean and make use of their H100's to blitz through such workloads should they arise.
@Digo thank you for the great advice and suggestions. I'll speak with the accountants and see if I can up the budget so can enter in at a higher spec from the get-go. Like I said to Brian (above) I don't really want to build another desktop. I can't say I like the look of Mac OS (is all too flashy for my taste). How is it for Dark Mode and getting rid of all those horrible applications in the dock? Current desktop is entirely blank and black, all in all very minimal indeed, I detest clutter and am some what OCD about it...
