To be honest, it sounds like RoR or ActiveRecord is doing something wrong.

Ruby and RoR, slow? This is a no-brainer. Ruby is slow as molasses and RoR is built upon Ruby. Hmmmmm....

The implementation of JRuby should fix this concern.

"I also took a look at Django, and it struck me as astonishingly clunky compared to Rails and Nitro"

hahahahahahaha...

if you're using nvidia like me, then it's as simple as adding a couple of lines to your xorg congfig

I would have to agree. I can deal with a laptop in a pinch, but it slows me down considerably.

Howdy. My name is Jeremy, and I'm a software developer for a startup in Charlotte, NC. My company uses the .NET platform, but, personally, I'm a python guy.

have you run into any problems with the built-in wireless? i know the older powerpc based models did not have a linux driver available for the wireless, but i'm not familiar with the intels.

The wireless works fine for me. I think I've come across a post or two on forums about the newest MacBooks having issues with the wireless that force people to use ndiswrapper, but mine works fine. I wouldn't suggest getting a Mac if you know you're going to be running Linux all the time. I got mine because I got a pretty nice discount. I never touch the OS X partition.

Ubuntu Feisty on an IBM T42

Ditto, except mine is T43.

Caution: PostgreSQL 7.4 disappeared in Feisty. I'd been wanting to move to 8.1 anyway; this just accelerated it.

then why did you even respond? the question was "what Linux laptops do you use for development?", not "how many of you are mac fanboys?"

My guess is the same reason I felt compelled to click on the link. OS X is the best desktop Unix experience I have ever had. It has all the tools I use, all the power underneath, and it comes wrapped in a pretty pretty wrapper.

Linux to me has become a loose term for any Unix. I've heard it used to refer to any of the BSD's, Solaris, and even OS X.

I've never heard anyone refer to BSD/Solaris/OSX as Linux

keep it civil please

Because of the false assumption inherent in the question.

Fantastic essay. Now I'm all pumped up. As soon as I find a colleague that I want to share an office with, I'll be submitting an application :)