Skip to content

windows

Setting up a new Windows laptop for Python development

The Backstory

I've been doing a bit more development on my personal laptop lately and I was starting to brush up against the limits of my hardware. I have a Thinkpad X270, and although it comes with the renowned keyboard and a sturdy (not quite) bullet-proof chassis, I was starting to question the other parts of the spec... 8GB of RAM, an Intel i5-62000U processor and only 155GB of usable disk... I quickly ran out of space after setting up Windows Subsystem for Linux, a few versions of Python and some virtual environments.

Fair enough, I had a bit of bloat that I could slim down but I didn't want to have to make this a regular occurrence. Also, being a bit of a tab whore I was starting to experience a bit of slowness as I switched contexts between VS Code and my browser. Frankly, I could do with an upgrade. And although it had absolutely zero influence over this decision I was also experiencing a few ping issues when playing Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition online despite good ping and speeds on the internet tests... nope, no sway at all.

Chocolatey vs. Scoop vs Winget - which Windows package manager to use?

It didn't seem like that long ago that there wasn't much choice when it came to package managers on Windows, but as it finally matures a bit there are actually a few to choose from. Knowing the differences between them and which one to choose can be a little overwhelming at first, so in the process of trying to justify my own choices I thought I would write up this article to give a bit of background, explain the options available and some of the key differences between them.