dgcc has been available without xcode for many years through fink and macports (package managers for open source software).

Please don't misconstrue that as an Apple or OS X endorsement. To be clear, my experience with Apple laptop hardware was horrid. My white polycarbonate/fiberglass macbook ,within its first 2 years, suffered from a swollen battery, a/c adapter failure, cracks around the keyboard and display, a dead fan, a dead key, and several keys on the keyboard's home row whose letters wore off. Despite being a laptop, this machine never left my home and was always treated well. Note that none of these problems were unique to my machine; there are ample forum threads on the net about them. However, I do seem to have been particularly unfortunate in suffering from all of them.

To be fair, I must say that their customer service treated me well and attended to most of these issues. But, after the third year, when Applecare had expired and the machine began to refuse to charge, I took great joy in dropping it from a balcony, before running it over with my car, and slamming a sledgehammer upon it. My only lament is that I did not have thermite for the remains. In accordance with Apple's enviromentally-friendly policies, I properly disposed of the corpse.

I hear that the aluminum unibody designs are more robust. For those who invest them, I hope that's the case. I will steer clear.

A low-end Lenovo G570 that I bought 8 months ago just died last week. Consumer Electronics 101: it never bodes well when your computer releases its magic smoke. Very soon after the acrid smoke began to exit the vent, the machine shut down and has not shown any sign of life since. I suppose I should not have expected anything more when the manufacturer itself has little confidence in their product's quality: the machine shipped with a 6 month warranty (3 months for some parts, such as hinges).

I hope that the Thinkpad line hasn't suffered similarly. I owned a Thinkpad 486 that was still going strong 20 years after it was born. I only got rid of it because I had been accumulating too much disused hardware.

Since my Lenovo's passing, I will buy a new machine soon. Hopefully, after experiencing bad luck with my last two purchases, this next one will turn out well. Currently, I am dividing my time between a couple of laptops: a 7 yr old HP Compaq nx6325 (Windows XP/OpenBSD) and a 15 yr old Pentium II Compaq Armada 7800 (Debian). The open source unix systems run very well on both machines (I eschew elaborate desktop environments in favor of very lightweight tabbed window managers).

In an emergency, the Armada doubles as a heavy, devastingly lethal, blunt weapon (it weighs approx 9 lbs/4 kgs). [1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger]I will crush your puny ultrabook between my catastrophic, pumped up hinges![/1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger].

Since both of my current machines are related to Compaq, that's where I cast my vote.

Regards,
Alister