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.